PROPOSALS FOR NEW STRATEGIES,
FOR USE IN THE FIGHT TO LIMIT GLOBAL WARMING
Despite having the best intentions, the strategies and tactics used, so far, by people involved in the fight to help control global warming, simply have not worked "adequately" – defined as, "in ways that have been able to actually achieve the necessary results".
As part of an effort to try to "improve our game", the list below is a summary listing of 14 specific proposed strategies that should at least be considered by any environmental advocates who want to increase their effectiveness, and their likelihood of being able to help create and accomplish genuine, measurable, real-world results.
Before getting into any of those recommendations, here's a starting point suggestion: those who have the best track records of doing good work, writing good stuff, raising money to continue the fight, working with politicians, or other skills or accomplishments, should form, not just one, but an entire network of Global Warming Strategy Councils, which can discuss, consider, and adopt and use any one or more of these proposals, or any other proposals created and suggested by any other person or group. The hope is that local or regional councils, city-wide councils, state councils, professional councils (such as for engineers, lawyers, physicians, teachers, etc.), and councils in other nations, can, should, and someday will find ways to work together, and accomplish more and better things than any single group, by itself, could ever accomplish.
So . . . here is a set of proposals, for consideration . . .
1. Rather than allowing crucial facts to be side-stepped, avoided, entangled, and diluted by useless distractions, we need to show discipline, and keep the focus on “macro-facts” (i.e., facts that have global importance, and which will affect everyone).
Example: satellite photographs prove, beyond dispute, that the bright, reflective, low-energy-absorbing, protective snow and ice cover, in the Arctic, has completely disappeared over an area that is about 125 times the size of the entire state of New Jersey, over just the past 40 years, exposing MUCH darker lands and waters, which absorb MUCH more energy from sunlight, causing them to heat up even faster.
Climate change deniers cannot deny that; so, they try to pull, deflect, and distract attention away from it by arguing about unprovable and ultimately unimportant things . . . such as – this is a real example – by creating arguments over how many polar bears were actually alive, in prior decades. Arguments about things like polar bear populations, in past decades, need to be labeled, criticized, attacked, and dismissed as ruses and distractions, deliberately intended to pull attention away from the real problems, such as the ones described in the "Facts" pages of this website.
2. We must explain – and keep the public’s focus on – a limited and manageable number of facts that any intelligent person can remember, without straining, and without resentment.
There are powerful and even compelling reasons why advertising, marketing, and new-product campaigns are limited to only a small number of carefully-selected facts. Environmentalists need to learn and understand those reasons, and learn how to use that approach skillfully, rather than trying to describe and explain large collections of numerous facts, in misguided attempts to show how knowledgeable they are.
3. We need to choose an easily-remembered (and positive, and unifying) label (and theme), rather than allowing opponents to label us.
We nominate this phrase: “We are radical realists.” And, we invite any other nominations.
4. We need to select, announce, and drive into the public consciousness, a grim and awful prediction that will gain wide attention and publicity, and trigger open and public debates about whether it is indeed likely to happen, and if so, what the timing will be.
Our nominee: what will happen to the entire state of Florida, NOT over the next 300 years, but over the next 30. It’s not just rising oceans, and hurricanes; sinkholes are growing exponentially, and they get worse every time a hurricane passes through, and makes the limestone (all of Florida is on limestone) more porous, and weaker.
5. We need to push Congress to hold hearings on global warming.
There are so many questions, problems, and issues that should be forced out into the open, where everyone can see them – and so many people who should be required to testify, under sworn oath, about what they have done – that that proposal is described in its own section, which can be reached directly by the button in the footer.
6. More people need to understand why and how a car interior will get hot, if it sits in the sun with all the windows rolled up.
Everyone knows it happens, but most people don’t know why. So, let’s explain it to them, in ways any normal person can understand (with demonstrations), and then build on that, because the exact same process is what is causing global warming.
7. We need to teach politicians, and others, that science cannot PROVE anything that has not yet happened; instead, science can only PREDICT future events.
As an example, science cannot PROVE that if you leave a green 2018 Camaro with a black interior sitting in the hot sun on a cloudless day with all the windows rolled up, next August, then it will get hotter inside the car, than outside it. Even though we all know, perfectly well, that that is exactly what will happen to it, science simply cannot PROVE it. Why not? Because it has not yet happened. That is not how science works.
Nevertheless, the ability to correctly PREDICT what will happen, based on science, is extraordinarily powerful. Every manufacturing operation that is ever performed is based, not on proof that it will succeed, but on a prediction that it will succeed. After a company has done enough testing to know how a machine works, it will be willing to spend money to buy the materials that that machine will turn into a finished product. Why? Because it can confidently and reliably predict what the machine will do, based on what it has done in the past.
Despite that truth, too many Republican politicians continue to say, “Since science cannot even prove that global warming is going to wreck things, I’m not going to spend taxpayer money to keep it from happening.” That does not show wisdom, insight, or leadership; instead, it shows a stubborn refusal to even try to understand how science actually works, and it shows a grotesquely reckless, dangerous, ill-advised refusal to listen to any reasonable and realistic warnings.
8. We need to get ready to ask every candidate for Congress, in 2024, whether they actually understand what global warming is, why it is happening, and why we need to try to reduce it.
And, since most politicians learn to deflect and sidestep difficult questions, we need to figure out the best ways to ask those questions, in ways that will get useful answers.
9. Since different people respond differently, to various things, we need to learn how to use more than just one style of – and approach to – persuasion.
Most of us need to focus on moderate appeals, to moderate people. That is how we can reach the most voters, and get better people into Congress.
However, a few people might be able to contribute to the larger effort, in useful ways, if they begin to bluntly yet calmly and realistically warn “denial leaders” that if millions of people start dying, and if mob violence takes over, they (and their descendants) might be hunted down, and killed, because of how stupidly and recklessly they are being, today, and how much damage they are inflicting, on this planet, and on innocent people, because they are still – despite all the warnings – doing all they can do, to deny, confuse, undercut, and contradict the warnings that could have helped, when there was still time for those warnings to help.
10. To help more people understand what is truly at stake, we need to begin developing a TV series, with each episode (or mini-series) presenting – in a serious, carefully planned, entirely realistic way – a deeply disturbing, frightening, and even horrifying scenario . . . which might actually happen, some day.
11. We need to invite and consider proposals for ways to attract and then sustain publicity, and involvement, other than just protests, in ways that can get people thinking.
Our nominee: “The Mar-A-Lago Pool Pool”. How long will the swimming pool at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago be able to stay open and functioning, as the ocean keeps getting closer and closer to it? Care to place a wager, on your best guess as to what year they have to surrender it? This could be a good fund-raising opportunity, for any not-for-profit entity that wants to create its own betting pool. And, it could be like a cluster of mosquitos, relentlessly biting Trump’s ears while he falsely pretends it cannot and will not happen for hundreds of years.
12. We need to push Congress and voters toward a serious evaluation of how global warming will – and should – affect America's laws and actions on immigration, the southern border, and "Lifeboat America".
This is one of the most severe and divisive challenges we face, and there are no easy answers. But, continuing to pretend that the issues of global warming, and immigration, are not tied to each other by tight and terrible knots, is not a good or useful approach. If we can show that scientific facts and warnings about global warming can help create serious and intelligent debates in Congress – involving both parties, and pushing toward actual answers, rather than just posturing and politicking – that would do a lot to gain the trust and respect of the public.
13. This nation will need to do more and more, each year, to help severely damaged communities cope with the increasing number – and the increasing damage levels – of climate-related disasters, such as tornados, hurricanes, and floods. So, we will someday need to begin wrestling with the question of whether all citizens who have not previously served in the military should spend some amount of time – such as a year – working in some sort of public service, helping badly damaged communities clean up, after they have been hit. If environmentalists get out in front of that issue, we may be able to change a lot of minds, about both our sincerity in wanting to actually help, and our level of commitment to the public good.
14. We need to give environmental advocates the types of training in "Negotiating Skills" that law and business schools offer.