The Climate Crisis: A Fresh Look - What do We do, by When, and How?
Location: The Haven, First Unitarian Church, 569 S 1300 E, SLC
Time & Dates: 6:30PM-8:30PM, Thursdays (except for one Friday) Oct 12 & 27 (Friday), Nov 9, Dec 7, Jan 11 & 25, and Feb 8 & 22
We know that we are in a climate crisis. But, what does this mean? What are the most impactful things we can do? Where will we be most effective in focusing our action?
Will resisting Trump be consequent? Can cities and states “make Trump irrelevant”? Is education the path to follow? What about legislation? Petitions, rallies, demonstrations, protests, civil disobedience, lawsuits - what place do these efforts have?
Are all of these together, and more, enough to stabilize the climate? What if all the groups (local, state, national, international//large and small) working on all the efforts they are working on now actually accomplished their stated goals, will this stabilize the climate? And will it stabilize the climate at the 2◦C Paris Accord heat ceiling?
Are we in a climate emergency? If so, how can we tell and what does this mean? And if so, what do we do about it? Are current efforts sufficient, if they accomplish what they state is needed? If not, what more or different needs to be done, and how can it be accomplished?
The New York Magazine and author Wallace-Wells published “Uninhabitable Earth,” very recently. He interviewed dozens of experts and climate scientists. What is the importance of this article that millions of people have read and discussed?
The Fresh Look at the Climate Crisis will begin with Wallace-Wells article and include other readings that are just as intriguing, and perspectives that are just as informed by science and experts, and in so doing, together we will answer these questions.
This course will be a fascinating and challenging ride. We will have the input and involvement of some of the best climate scientists in the world, and we will examine information and implications that are not being discussed or explained at any level in the conversations about the climate crisis.
This course offers a completely different view of the Climate Crisis, a completely different view of your role in the crisis, and a completely different view of how to respond effectively.
This is not about telling those who come to the course to do more of what they are already doing, or to ask them to do the things they are doing better. This is something different and fascinating. This is a Fresh Look, and a Revelation.
Sign-up for this course online by clicking here or sign up at the Environmental Ministry Table at church on Sunday. The materials for the course: the readings, the discussion questions and thoughts will be circulated via email throughout the course. Attend the full course or specific sessions that fit your schedule. But please sign-up to receive the materials.
The content for the first session on Thursday, October 12th will be based on the “Uninhabitable Earth, the Annotated version.” A video that will be referred to is from Kevin Anderson, and the YouTube is here (Note: the hyperlinks to the course material will be sent by email to the entire class after registration.)
A key theme throughout the course will be to define and to deal with the Hydra-Headed Meta-Delusion that describes the way we have responded to the climate crisis so far. This particular type of mythological hydra, a ten-headed one, mated in its ancestry with a dragon. When a hero is able to cut off one head, two more grow in its stead. These two are each more deadly than the one severed. The blood from this hydra, if splashed on a human, causes the human to become insane in short order. This hydra’s greatest vulnerability is ice.