Climate Change Activism

Thursday, January 22, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

In our last meeting, McKenzie Funk provided several disturbing examples of businesses that will profit from the misery of climate change, but he avoided making any conclusions. In our next meeting, we will hear from Naomi Klein, who concludes that capitalism is fundamentally incapable of solving climate change. She recasts climate change as yet another example of social inequality. Here is a quote from her book, This Changes Everything:

For a long time, environmentalist spoke of climate change as a great equalizer, the one issue that affected everyone, rich or poor. It was supposed to bring us together. Yet all signs are that it is doing precisely the opposite, stratifying us further into a society of haves and have-nots, divided between those whose wealth offers them a not insignificant measure of protection from ferocious weather, at least for now, and those left to the mercy of increasingly dysfunctional states.

Klein not only attacks capitalism, but also the billionaires and scientists who are proposing technical alternatives to stalled efforts to reduced carbon emissions. She rails against these "self-appoint saviors" in this 2014 pep-talk to other climate change activist.

As a bonus, here is a Naomi Klein 2010 TED Talk which places climate change in the broader context of risky behavior. The women in our discussion group will be please to discover who she blames.

-------------------------------- Update 1/22/15 ----------------------

Here are the links to the websites and videos shown during the meeting:

1) Virgin Earth Challenge, Richard Branson's $25M prize for a technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

2) Video on why Naomi Klein disagrees with James Hansen on nuclear power.

3) Video on Naomi Klein being interviewed by Bill Moyers

Surviving and Profiting from Climate Change

Thursday, January 15, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We will discuss adaptation to climate change which is unavoidable. The first TED Talk covers how we have adapted after climate disasters, like storms and heat waves, to minimize the damage from future events. The second TED Talk covers how some enterprises are planning to profit from climate change (and I don't mean renewable energy).

-------------------------------- Update 1/15/15 ----------------------

Here is a link to the book that was mentioned in the second talk above, Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming. In this book, McKenzie Funk uncovers plans to profit from the misery of climate change. As with his talk is is quite disturbing and he proposes no solutions.

Schedule for 2015Q1

Here is the agenda for January to March of 2015:

• January - Climate Change: Time for Plan B?
• February - Sustainability: Will we run out of food or water?
• March - Open Discussion

Climate Engineering

Thursday, January 8, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

For the first meeting of 2015, we will look at Climate Engineering, also called Geo-Engineering, which some call the last hope to save humanity from climate change, while others call nuts. The first video will explain that geo-engineering is an umbrella term which includes many strategies with little risk, like agriculture and forest management.

However, Climate Engineering also includes controversial strategies of solar radiation management, SRM. The second video will explain the proper use of SRM. 

-------------------------------- Update 1/8/15 ----------------------

Here are the links to the websites and new videos presented at the meeting:

1) Website for CEC14, the first global inter-discipline Climate Engineering Conference. 

2) Video for Nathan Myhrvold interview on CNN

3) Video for David Keith interview on BBC

Topics for 2015

Thursday, January 8, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

For January we will continue with topic related to climate change, including geo-engineering, green jobs, oceans, fresh  water, agriculture and more. I will post a video a week before the next meeting which is on January 8.

In the meantime, please post your suggestion for other topics for the coming year.

Movies to Watch in 2014

Thursday, December 18, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

For the last meeting of the year, we will just have fun by examining the movies of 2014. The Golden Globes nomination just came out today, and we can use this as a guide. But if there is a movie that you would like to discuss, please add your movie suggestion as a comment. It does not matter if you saw the movie or not. Often the topic of the movie is enough for stimulating conversation.

Life Stories

Thursday, December 11, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

The schedule shows that December will be used for catch-up and trying new things. The first meeting of December was use to reschedule the Clean Energy Innovation meeting from November. The meeting focused on the upside. But there is also a downside and I said we would cover that next week. However, during the meeting, many more Climate Change topics came up including, water shortage,  energy storage, climate politics, green jobs, nuclear power, geo-engineering and the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis. As a result we will reserve January to cover these and any other topic of Climate Change.

So next week we try something new. There are many superb TED Talks about people who did interesting with there lives. These life stories provide life lessons that applies to anyone, and they are told in a way that is truly inspirational. For the test case, we will show the two talks from Diana Nyad, who at age 64 swam from Cuba to Florida. She is the only TED speaker to give a talk about a glorious failure and then return after achieving success.