You can imagine the squabbling. The third and last IPCC report was late coming out last week because 195 government leaders had to agree on what to put in the summary. I read about the delay last Monday morning while I was sitting outside on the balcony of our rented condo in Tucson, waiting for the sun to climb over the the jagged teeth of the Catalina mountains in the near distance, to illuminate the saguaro and prickly pine and just greening desert shrubs that encircle the adobe walls of the building’s complex. While I wait, a symphony of bird song keeps beat to the candelaria as its thin spikes sway in the soft wind.
It took me some time to adjust my view, to see the desert as more than a parched, arid place of death and wandering ghosts, and instead see it as a as a brilliant pupil of nature, as an integrated life form that has mastered the lessons of adaptation to its environment with an intelligence that I could only wish was reflected in the buildings and streets and lifestyle of the two legged creatures deemed to have the most intelligence: us.
What mastering lessons of adaptation could look like.
When the sun rises above the mountains, I decide it’s time to take a walk. There are no paths through the desert scrub so I put on a big straw hat to protect myself from the sun’s rays and walk the long tar driveway to the street, a four lane highway where I have to walk in the tarred space between the curb and the driver’s lane. Finally, I come to a busy intersection and find a sidewalk that runs along the highway. There are lovely wide sidewalks beside all the highways here, but no one is on them because they don’t actually go anywhere, except to the next shopping center, with another Pet Stop or Mountain Nails or Taco Bell snugged up beside a supermarket and a Target and a KFC. I walk and as I do I count the number of SUV’s and sedans. There are 8 SUV’s for every 2 sedans. There are public busses but I don’t see many of them and I don’t know where they go.
When the IPCC squabbling ends later in the day, the scientists will issue their third and final section of their report which took seven years to produce. The news will be grim. The scientists might as well have been screaming. This is what Amy Westervelt, author of the podcast Drilled will say about the report:
I'm a climate reporter. It's all I focus on, and pretty much all I think about, and I've been covering IPCC reports for 20 years so I've got a pretty good handle on them. And what I'm reading in this one is eye-opening in a lot of ways. So to all my reply guys who are like "well don't you already know what's in the report, things are still bad," I say actually what's in this report are the seeds for revolution.
The Secretary of the UN, Antonio Guterres, called governments and corporations liars for claiming they were on track to meet net zero emissions which have increased in the last ten years, not decreased. Unless we significantly reduce emissions by 2025 (!!!!), we are headed towards, and this is a new term for me, climate breakdown.
The contrast between the way the desert plants and animals have adapted to this hot, dry, home, and the way humans have is stark and, in light of the threat of climate breakdown, terrifying. Did you know that the spines on the cactus plants not only keep predators away but radiate heat away from the plant and provide shade? Did you know that the spines on a lizard are arranged like a trough so when it rains, water pours down its spine and into its mouth? But there is no warning on the water taps in my condo and great spurts of water pour into the bathtub and out of the water dispenser on the fridge.
A desert lupine!
We have three years, eight at the most to do what it took this desert ecosystem thousands of years to do: adapt to the climate in a way that allows the inhabitants to thrive and reproduce, and, at the same time, to radiate beauty. Curiously, this is what the new IPCC report covers: how humans can adapt to our planet’s climate and thrive in an environment organized not around an economy of ever increasing supply which is always looking to create demand, but around services, and lifestyle choices. This is the first time the report has focused on lifestyle changes and collective local action.
I find a side street to a residential neighborhood that doesn’t have a gate, a rare find. It’s quite beautiful down that street. The homes are large, expensive, single story and perfectly landscaped. There are no people out walking, no people to say hello to. The only humans I see are two men in a van with the words SECURITY printed on the side. I wonder what they would do if I were a black man strolling these streets and not a white-haired old lady with good shoes. And, true to form, there are no solar panels on any of the houses in this development.
A woman who owns a used bookstore downtown, who seemed of like mind to me, was the person I asked about why there aren’t more solar panels. She paused, hmmm, she said, I think people are afraid to put them on. They worry about how it would look to the neighbors. I don’t think she meant aesthetically. I think she meant political correctness, lifestyle and consumer decisions.
For this problem we need more behavioral scientists and story tellers, more people with my background to step up and put our skills and imaginations to work. Her statement made me, for one second, want to move to Tucson and figure out how to make putting solar panels on people’s roofs…cool, how to get people onto electric bikes and out of cars, how to convert all those shiny things in store windows into what they really are —climate polluting geegaws— and how to make plant based food as luscious to eat as a good steak.
“The IPCC has made it clear that everything will need to change: energy, buildings, transport, food and industry. This will include “demand management”, or reducing our consumption and demand for energy-intensive goods. Dietary changes, especially eating less meat, will be needed to reduce methane in particular.
It also strongly highlights the big potential impact from energy-efficient homes, walking and cycling, greener diets and less food waste. All these are popular with people, notes the IPCC.”
The language of this IPCC report with its emphasis on lifestyle changes might as well have been a blueprint for the work we are doing at FreeportCAN. We are, essentially, trying to change lifestyles at the most basic level: the small community of neighbors and friends. We have a building insulation working group, a solar group, a food group, a transportation group, a land and waters’ group, a conscientious consumer group. I hadn’t thought of ourselves as starting a revolution, but folks, let’s face it, that’s really what we are up to and what it is we need. NOW.
There are fascinating studies that conclude that if your neighbor gains or loses weight, gets depressed or is happy, then you too will gain or lose weight, feel sad or happy. The work of FreeportCAN is to make it cool to eat less meat, buy fewer energy intensive goods, put solar on your house, ride a bike to the market, take the Breeze to Portland.
The IPCC report lists one more way in which changing our lifestyle in Freeport could have significant impact.
“A small minority of 10% of the people on this planet are producing between 34% and 45% of the global carbon emissions, which is a staggering number. Per capita consumption is a strong expression of decisions of the few impacting the many which are often also the most vulnerable to climate change impacts.”
The people of Freeport are among that 10%. As are all these people up in the hills of Tucson. All of us, by our everyday choices, have an outsized influence on the future of the planet. And an outsized responsibility.
I am getting grandiose here, but I am imagining every town in Maine, hell every town in the USA, with a climate group like ours — neighbors working together to change our lifestyle decisions in the little time that’s left to adapt to our place here on this earth. Maybe the idea will spread like seeds blown on a strong wind. Maybe we will use our consciousness to create a way of life that is as smart and beautiful as the Saguaro desert that surrounds our rented condo. Or maybe we won’t.
Think about it, reader. Haven’t you always wanted to start a revolution? Think about starting a group like this in your town. We have, in Freeport, come upon a model that works very well, that distributes leadership and effort among many people and mobilizes the expertise and commitment of worried, caring neighbors who wish to act but do not want to act alone or know how to begin. I could write a little pamphlet for you. Call it, How to Organize Your Town for a Lifestyle Revolution. To quote a lead author of the IPCC report, it’s now or never.
Yes, please write the little pamphlet!!