Climate Scientists: Please, Occupy the Climate Talks

Occupy Climate Talks. But, in this case, they need to be occupied, not just by the people who are already feeling the effects most acutely, but by the scientific community. At the end of every paltry governmental proposal, scientists need to do a mic check and tell those present exactly what the implications of their inadequacies are.

I have begun to greet news of climate summits with something like a yawn, but with more angst. I think the first shock was the Earth Summit in Rio, when President Bush, Sr. would not sign the biodiversity treaty and the Pope would not permit any discussion of population control. Having been raised both American and Catholic, I was aghast that my representatives represented the diametric opposite of my views. At every summit since then, after major scientific studies always revised their predictions to be increasingly dire in the face of human intransigence, those whom we persist in calling our leaders have habitually failed to take significant, much less adequate, action.

After all, Severin Suzuki gave the most articulate speech about the subject 19 years ago. 40 years ago high school students like m were being told of the dangers of a human population explosion (our population has increased 75% since then). We have been warned. No one can say we didn’t see this coming.

It feels like living for years with a fatal diagnosis, and getting bored with the visits of impotent or incompetent doctors and the hand-wringing of well-meaning friends bringing crystals and herbal remedies. I would feel completely giddy if, for a change, someone knowledgeable and competent, who knew what it would take to beat the diagnosis, would come visit and tell me the truth, whether it was what I wanted to hear or not. And if I could watch them berate and verbally abuse the doctors who had been charged with healing, but instead allowed my condition to deteriorate in the years since my diagnosis, I would be ecstatic.

Or would I? Because what strikes me is that the human response to climate change is so similar to a person’s response to being told that their cigarettes will, indeed, kill them. The addict’s response is almost always, “Well, yes, but I’m not dead yet, am I?” It is not information we lack. It is, perhaps, not even the will. There are lots of smokers who would like to quit, and have tried to quit. It’s the combination of knowing the steps needed to break the habit and addiction, the support to reinforce new behaviors, and the courage and community needed to actually go through that process.

We need an intervention.