Coming to a Planet Near You

“Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin won’t exist, at least not for long, this side of 350. That’s the limit we face.”

Bill McKibben, 2008

If we live in an environment that’s wounded—where the water is polluted, the air is filled with soot and fumes, the food is contaminated with heavy metals and plastic residues, or the soil is practically dust—it hurts us, chipping away at our health and creating injuries at a physical, psychological, and spiritual level. In degrading the environment, therefore, we degrade ourselves.

The reverse is also true. In the process of helping the earth to heal, we help ourselves. If we see the earth bleeding from the loss of topsoil, biodiversity, or drought and desertification, and if we help reclaim or save what is lost—for instance, through regeneration of degraded forests—the planet will help us in our self-healing and indeed survival. When we can eat healthier, nonadulterated food; when we breathe clean air and drink clean water; when the soil can produce an abundance of vegetables or grains, our own sicknesses and unhealthy lifestyles become healed. The same values we employ in the service of the earth’s replenishment work on us, too.

Wangari Maathai (1940-2011), Kenyan activist, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Green Belt Movement ((original article)

CONDUCT YOUR OWN REALITY CHECK

Below are links to some major resources and articles on climate change since 2001. A few exist on environmental or .edu sites, but most are articles in the mainstream media referencing scientific studies or reports. Many are from The Guardian or other major newspapers in the UK, where climate change issues received far earlier and far more coverage than in the US.

STUDIES AND ARTICLES ON CLIMATE CHANGE OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS

  • GENERAL RESOURCES ON CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUES
  • 20 YEARS OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CLIMATE CHANGE ARTICLES
  • A SHORT LIST OF PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT ARTICLES (AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE)

CLIMATE CHANGE IN HAWAI’I AND THE PACIFIC – RESOURCES

EARTH TEMPERATURE TIMELINES