Tech | December 12, 2011 | 20 comments

NY Times gets blunt: Climate action requires a fundamental remaking of the sinews of modern life

source: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/12/387546/ny-times-climate-action-requires-fundamental...

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JanforGore
John Broder had this remarkable sentence in his Sunday New York Times dispatch from Durban:

Effectively addressing climate change will require over the coming decades a fundamental remaking of energy production, transportation and agriculture around the world — the sinews of modern life.

This is uncharacteristically blunt for the Times. It reflects a worldview that is generally not reflected in their overall coverage, as I discussed in “The New York Times Abandons the Story of the Century and Joins the Energy and Climate Ignorati.”

Broder’s point is that the UN process is simply not up to the task of addressing the climate problem:

It is simply too big a job for those who have gathered for these talks under the 1992 United Nations treaty that began this grinding process.

“There is a fundamental disconnect in having environment ministers negotiating geopolitics and macroeconomics,” said Nick Robins, an energy and climate change analyst at HSBC, the London-based global bank.

Unfortunately, most economics ministers are pretty clueless about the subject. That said, I’ve never been a big fan of the current process, which requires near-unanimous consent by nearly 200 countries.

What’s most blocking action, from my perspective, isn’t the process so much as the failure of the media and policymakers here and around the globe to realize that failing to address climate change will lead to an even bigger remaking of what’s left of modern life in a world of 10°F warming (see An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces“).

Inaction will create the almost impossible task of feeding 9+ billion in “the face of a rapidly worsening climate.” And avoiding mass starvation and general chaos will certainly require a fundamental remaking of the world. The NYT‘s science reporter Justin Gillis gets this, as you see in articles like “Food Supply Under Strain on a Warming Planet” and “Global Warming Hinders Crop Yields, Study Finds.”

We cannot escape fundamentally remaking the sinews of modern life over the coming decades — in a sustainable way if we act on climate and in a catastrophic way if we don’t. Now is the time for major media outlets like the New York Times to remake their coverage to inform the public of this far more clearly and unambiguously.

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20 comments // NY Times gets blunt: Climate action requires a fundamental remaking of the sinews of modern life

  • ampersand
    • 0
      ampersand  

    • I've begun to think the inability to address man-made global climate change and human driven destruction of the environment on a planetary scale is its own solution.
      It will be a screamingly painful meltdown to witness, but it will very likely be, in the end, to be a perfectly fitting solution in the richest mode of poetic justice.

    • 6 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
  • Ambill94
    • +1
      Ambill94  

    • That'a an incredible graphic...there is no reason to believe at this point that this country has a clue what global leadership is all about other than bigger guns...but this graphic is what out children and grandchildren are most likely going to inherit...and whole lot sooner than later...were have become a disgusting, gluttonous, consuming and destructive monster in the world of nations...

    • 6 months ago
  • maasanova
    • 0
      maasanova  

    • In other words mansions and unlimited carbon emmissions for the 1%, smart grids and global warming taxes for the 99%; managed by a world government infrastructure.

    • 6 months ago
  • tverdell
    • 0
      tverdell  
    • maasanova:

      Actually moving away from gas and oil to renewables puts energy production into the hands of local communities/cities and states.

      This is why there is such resistance.

      It decentralizes the energy infrastructure.

    • 6 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • maasanova:

      No, it is about US. Localizing agriculture and energy and also moving AWAY from those structures you mention AND holding them accountable for the damage they have done. It means changing our perceptions of the world and what truly holds value whereby we then transition to the consciousness we need to see that the road we are on, which by your broken record repsonse you fully endorse is not the road to a sustainable future for us or generations to come.

    • 6 months ago
  • squarethecircle
    • 0
      squarethecircle  
    • tverdell:

      maybe...it depends on how we do it. If we put up huge wind farms or solar wind towers for example, a small group of investors and owners will continue to profit off humanity and maintain control.

    • 6 months ago
  • tverdell
    • +1
      tverdell  
    • squarethecircle:

      True, but moving to renewables makes it easy for a community or even an individual to generate power.

      As some individuals are already living off the grid.

      This is why I believe they fight against renewables. They loose control.

    • 6 months ago
  • DanCastro
  • squarethecircle
    • +2
      squarethecircle  

    • he is absolutely correct, but we have to decide how for ourselves rather than having psychopathic leaders tell us what's best. Every one of us knows what is best we just have to chose right action and let the rest slip away.

    • 6 months ago
  • percipi224
    • +1
      percipi224  

    • All shifts in how we feed and shelter ourselves comes with death and chaos. The mistake at the moment is the elite thinking they can either control all this or avoid the worst of it, or both. We can feed our populations if it weren't for the greed machine snatching everything up to make profit off of it. The fight for land in Africa is case in point. India as well. In america agri business ran out the majority of small diverse farmers in the 80's. Population wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the oppression of women. When women are given a chance to control when they have babies they do a good job of spacing child birth. Religion has more to do with the oppression and control of women thus birth rates. China has been trying to control its populations since the 70's. More educated peoples control their birth rates. our water and air are being destroyed by industries that extract and are the biggest pushers of denial. If you will notice the more any of us conserve and push for regulations the more those carbon industries push back with money and power. Push back on the carbon industries and we can get this turned around. Get women rights to their bodies, and grow some of your own food.

    • 6 months ago
  • artemis6
  • artemis6
    • +2
      artemis6  

    • Jeremy Rifkin has a book about this . It is the Third industrial revolution and it is inevitable . There is a post about it here .

    • 6 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • +3
      JanforGore  
    • artemis6:

      Yes I saw it and voted it up. I think it is inevitable and also think that in order to reach that stage we will also need a change in consciousness to get to that point. I hope that is coming as well. I see subtle signs it is. We more than likely will need to be pushed into it by circumstance which seems to be the nature of the beast.

    • 6 months ago
  • artemis6
  • rerushg
    • +1
      rerushg  

    • Oh wow! Good link, nice pic, decent article by Broder, and a nice little science video. Perfect! I love all things science.
      LOL. I must say, though, that "... remaking the sinews of modern life" is one of those lines that makes me chuckle. Broder aspires to Shakespeare?

    • 6 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
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