We all know the Bad News when it comes to Climate Change. Climate Change is Here. It’s Big! It’s Bad! It’s Hurting Us! It’s Hurting our Economies.
What most people don’t know is that there is also a lot of good news about climate change. In these videos, Climate Reality explores some of that good news, like the fact that real solutions exist and that we’re already seeing their benefits.
And now, for the Good News about Climate Change
There hasn’t been much good news about climate change until recently. But now in 2015, we’re at last facing the hard truth of climate change with the stubborn relentlessness of human will and perseverance.
Good News
Published on Sep 16, 2014
ClimateReality
Standard YouTube Licence
Twenty Reasons for Hope
After the final no there comes a yes. And on that yes, the future world depends. Wallace Stevens
Every major struggle for justice and social progress in the history of humankind has met with a lot of ‘nos’ until the last ‘no’ yielded to a yes – apartheid, civil rights, abolition, equality of women, nuclear disarmament. The climate change movement is no different.
The struggle to recognize the reality of the climate crisis and to come together with meaningful solutions is the greatest social movement in the history of the world. The future of our civilization depends on it.
In the following video which was aired as Hour 24 of Twenty Four Reasons for Hope in September 2014, Al Gore makes the case that humankind now knows that the climate change problem can be solved. He sees the turnaround in public opinion and the public protests of hundreds of thousands of people around the globe as a clear sign that world leaders will listen.
24 Reasons for Hope
Published on Sep 19, 2014
Climate Reality
Standard YouTube License
The climate related extreme weather events have definitively answered the questions in most people’s mind that climate change is the most serious problem we have ever faced. We have the tools and the technology to solve it. But can we solve it? Yes we can! Will we solve it? Yes we will!
So now that we have a way, will there be a will? Will 2015 be “the year” that will culminate in a successful climate agreement at the Paris COP21 summit in December?
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Rolly Montpellier is the Founder and Managing Editor of BoomerWarrior.Org. He’s a Climate Reality leader, a Blogger and a Climate Activist. Rolly has been published in the Climate Change Guide, The Hill Times, TheCanadian, UnpublishedOttawa, the Kingston Whig, Examiner, 350Ottawa, ClimateMama, MyEarth360, GreenDivas, The Elephant, Countercurrents.
You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
Our Global Warming Polluting Energy Policies, of burning Fossil Fuels, Toxic Coal, Poisoning Fracked Natural Gas, an Deadly Radiated Fuel Rods, are a Nightmare, that our children wake up to everyday, what are you going to do about it ?
We Need Sustainable Energy Policies, with all hands on Deck, removing Home Owners and Business Persons from investing and keeping their own profits goes against our daily childhood pledge of, With Liberty and Justice for All.
A California Residential Feed in Tariff would allow homeowners to sell their Renewable Energy to the utility, protecting our communities from Poison Water, Grid Failures, Natural Disasters, Toxic Natural Gas and Oil Fracking. It would also create a new revenue stream for the Hard Working Taxpaying, Voting, Homeowner.
Sign and Share this petition for a California Residential Feed in Tariff.
http://signon.org/sign/let-california-home-owners
We need a National Feed in Tariff, this petition starts in California.
California currently has a Feed in Tariff that does not allow home owners to participate in the State mandated goal of 33% renewable energy by 2020.
California also does not allow the homeowner to oversize their R.E systems, as of now, your local utility has allowed only 80% homeowner generation from your R.E system.
California has 2 different Energy policies Net-metering and a Feed in Tariff.
Net metering the energy policy for homeowners, allow you to bank excess electricity from R.E systems for future credits. The credits you accumulate are at the retail rate, and are reviewed at the end of the year. It will be written off with a thank you from the utility and no payment to the homeowner for producing more than what you use.
Net metering has allowed third party leasing companies to replace one utility with another.
“Examples of Net-metering slow down Renewable Energies:
1. Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs) which create de facto caps on the deployment of renewable energies (the Germans do not have any RPSs, their Feed in Tariff has no caps.
2. Net-metering caps, most states only allow a small percentage of one to two percent of peak load to be net metered.
3. Third party leasing companies like Solar City, Sun Run, Verango and others fight tooth and nail to protect scarce capacity carve outs (from the States RPSs) so as to bolster their chosen business model.” Bob Tregilus
No one is fighting for the Hard Working, Taxpaying, Voting, Homeowner, we can change that with a Ca. Residential Feed in Tariff Energy policy that allows everyone to participate. Homeowner’s, Small and Large Businesses, Small and Large farmers, and Industries, have the right to sell Renewable Energy electricity to the utility.
Vote Solar Initiative is a Sierra Club and Solar Leasing Companies platform to ensure that One Utility will take the place of Another through the continued use of Net Metering.
We need a Policy that will enable Hard Working, Voting, Tax Paying Citizens, get a chance to participate in the States goal of 33% Renewable Energy by 2020 through a California Residential Feed in Tariff.
California, there is enough Residential Solar to power 2.25 San Onofres, couple that with a Commercial Feed in Tariff and we can solve some of these environmental and electrical generating problems.
This petition will ask the California Regulators and Law makers to allocate Renewable Portfolio Standards to Ca. Home Owners for a Residential Feed in Tariff, the RPS is the allocation method that is used to set aside a certain percentage of electrical generation for Renewable Energy in the the State.
Hope….the most important 4 letter word in the world………there is always hope for me as long as I can work to help…..for the future I won’t know, but my children (and maybe their children, too) will know……..never give up hope……..2015 has the chance to be the year of change……maybe it started in ’14
Hello Dave,
Yes I was on GreenDivas sometime ago and will be on again on February 3rd. This time, the interview will be about climate change and depression, a topic which is getting more coverage these days.
Thank you for your kind comments. Good to know one’s work is appreciated.
I see 2015 as a crucial year for the climate movement. In a recent post, I feature a good friend from Vancouver who is an artist and activist. Her material is inspiring. She speaks about The Big Leap………… Take a look at is if you haven’t already.
By the way, is dad4future a site or Facebook page? Tell me more. Do you write articles or post online somewhere?????
Great positive article to start 2015, Rolly!
Yes, there are lots of new and continuing initiatives trying to bring clean technologies to the market. They will succeed because people will naturally gravitate to them as they become competitive and affordable.
On Radio4 (BBC) Woman’s Hour this morning, it was stated in a survey, that lots of people were downsizing, reducing waste, not buying Christmas gifts (wasteful manufacture energetically), and cutting their use of resources. Most were putting their energies into good relationships rather than the accumulation of “things.” At least one third of the surveyed group mentioned that the planet needed more love and they were doing it specifically for environmental reasons. Another third said it was due to financial constraints, and the last third said they were doing it for themselves to make life less complicated and stressful. Lots of calls, tweets and texts came into the program stating similar goals. This is hopeful. Make it personal to every single person (regardless of reason), and making the planet a better place to live becomes a reality!
Yes Colette, it was a good article to begin a new year. 2015 will be a big year for the climate movement as world leaders gear up for Paris2015. There is a lot happening. The phenomenal growth in renewable energy will likely continue as we slowly move away from fossil fuels. That said, I don’t know how the collapse of oil prices will affect the clean energy sector.
I’m glad you mentioned the BBC Woman’s Hour. Interesting content. This year at Christmas, we cut back on a lot of stuff. For the grandchildren, there were fewer gifts to open but we tried to create more meaning with some gifts. For example, we donated money to a foodbank on behalf of the four grandchildren. Each got a single page from the foodbank that said thank you for giving. It was a nice touch.
Rolly, I really don’t understand why we always feel the need to frame “climate change” in the context of hope or despair. As many point out, the climate has changed more than it has been stable for most the planet’s history. Humanity has been preternaturally lucky for about 10,000 years so we got to develop a “higher order” capacity that turns out to be fairly problematic, as sustainability and “higher order” goes.
It’s fixing to change again, and we probably accelerated that transition/transformation. It’s how WE, humanity, respond to the emergent situation that matters. So, again, what is this “hope” of which we speak? Hope is a function of irrational expectation of change under circumstances we have no control over. Are we in this for the long haul? Do we truly have NO control? I don’t think so!
We definitively have things we can do, both to lower the risks of further climate change, and to limit the impact of problems that are already cast in stone, given our direct involvement in making it more horrific. So what’s keeping us? Let’s get off our collective derrieres and each and every one of us start to make decisions about how we live on the planet that are guided by ABSOLUTE integrity and consistency between EVERYTHING we think, feel, say, and do.
If we actually made EVERY purchase we make from the perspective of “Does this support harms, or do direct harm, to the planet?” life as we know it would change tomorrow morning. Hope is for people who have given up on their own capacity to make a difference, and think someone else is going to save them from their own over-riding stupidity. Sorry, WE are the people we have been waiting for. Stop me now and ask me how.
Thanks John for your response.
Like you, I’m not particularly fond of the word “hope”. Too many people use hope as a substitute for action. In this way, hope can be a curse and give one a false sense of reality. The Climate Reality Project did the “24 Reasons for Hope” program last September. I think that it was an appropriate use of the term. Al Gore presented one reason for hope each of the 24 hours of the program. It was meant to show that a lot is happening in tackling climate change – that we’re on the right track in many ways. So it was not the wishful thinking kind of hope like a prayer would be. One of the hours of the 24-hour program was on the clean technology revolution and is showed how this is the way of the future.
I’m glad you raised the issue of hope. “Hope is for people who have given up on their own capacity to make a difference, and think someone else is going to save them from their own over-riding stupidity.” I totally agree with you.
thanks John for your rehearsal of the “hope without substance” argument … I am with you … I particularly like ““Does this … harm, or do direct harm, to the planet?”
… thinking on .. having been responsible for the implementation of food labeling legislation in one of the biggest … and knowing that the technology and competence is already available to track the environmental footprint of most products … I wonder whether and when we could get to a point of global agreement / ISO standards for all products to carry an “aids the environment / destroys the Planet ratio” sanctioned at supported by the UN perhaps ??
Thanks for reading the article and responding Guy of the green Tau.
You folks might enjoy this essay on “hope” (or, as I tend to refer to it, hope schmope):
http://blog.greenhearted.org/2013/06/a-torrent-of-hope.html
Action is our only hope, so hope is something we earn, not something we stick our thumb into so we can suck on it. (Okay, maybe that metaphor is a little weird … what I’m saying is that hope should not be used as a pacifier to keep us from taking action and doing the good climate change work.)
Thanks for sharing your blog post on hope. And you’re right, hope can never be used as a substitute for action. The word has a built-in double-edged sword. When I hear it used as in “hopeful signs” or “24 reasons for hope”, it makes me think that we’re on the right track – we need more of the same. But when I hear others say that technology will solve our climate problems or something will come along, then I worry that they’re not getting it – it’s bad hope.
I guess “hope” is one of those wishy-washy words we use to sound positive when in fact we have little idea if the reality of a situation is anything but positive.
Basically, we need to educate ourselves – find the data, find the solutions and forge ahead with actions. What’s missing is “motivation!”
Those of us who have already motivated ourselves to the first part – educating ourselves, can see that getting the solutions and moving ahead with actions, requires a team-effort to make a difference.
So how do we motivate people, who
a) Are not aware of the problems?
b) Don’t want to educate themselves?
c) Who believe that climate change isn’t a problem in the first place?
I look at all kinds of Youtube videos, or articles on various aspects of climate change and I’m dismayed at the number of trolls who laugh at or deride the articles – many comments are quite offensive.
We are up against a humanity that is split into caring and uncaring people… and the divide is getting bigger all the time! It is starting to feel a bit Biblical and I’m not even a religious person!
Colette – good comment. Thanks.
Biblical proportion sounds so ominous. Sometimes I just wish I could simply “turn it off”, you know just for 24 hours without thinking about the plight of our society, my grandchildren and their future. I just wonder how people can just ignore what is going on. As tragic as the events in Paris were, a few thousand kms away in Nigeria, hundreds/thousands die as a result of an extremist ruthless dictator and yet the coverage gets only minimal coverage. More time is spent covering an airplane crash than the effects of climate change which have much wider existential implications.
Sorry for the negativism. It does not look like this is going to be a good day.
Why are we still waiting for you to respond. Our list of people who give a BLEEP is growing and the children have access to the published list, this means if your not on it kids can see you don’t give a bleep about the local people in your community. We have invited the world to join in unity for the future of our home and environment, because “We Love Nature & We Vote”. (Bumper Sticker) If you continue to believe you can do this alone and steadfastly refuse to unite with others (Individuals and groups), you face the prospect of shame and embarrassment, why? just because you would not join a free group that invited you to be one who cares about the planet. Save The World Free is going viral in the near future. This means the sensational reward (wealth sharing kiosk project) will only go to the early birds. We are really exposing those that are full of s _ _ _, come along http://SavetheWorldfree.ning.com Sign in >>> http://savetheworldfree.ning.com/main/authorization/signUp?target=http%3A%2F%2Fsavetheworldfree.ning.com%2F
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