I was fortunate to study climate change under four IPCC Nobel laureates between January and May, 2008, and although I'm not particularly a fan of Al Gore, the primary winner of the Peace Prize, I had the chance to listen to and question people of the caliber of James J. McCarthy, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest scientific association, and Bill Moomaw, director of the International Environment and Resource Policy Program at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (since 1992), and others from various sectors involved in the diplomacy, ethics, and information policies regarding the environment, I could not but recall John Rawls' Theory of Justice, one of the most important philosophical works of the twentieth century, who insisted that the living have a moral obligation to leave a decent legacy to those who will be born in generations to come.
This blog is no place for me to take sides in the arguments about whether climate change is occurring. I certainly don't insist that Al Gore's movie is "right on." I won't blame all or even most possibly human-caused climate changes on Exxon-Mobile and The American Coal Foundation; they are players in a much bigger drama that is potentially going to establish the definitive "MLD" (Minimum Lethal Dose) of CO2 in the atmosphere.
No, I simply look at the news, use Yahoo alerts to inform me when "climate change" enters the news, and read things like The Carbon War, American Heat (by Donald A Brown, who kindly acknowledged my contribution to his July 2008 article in climateethics.org, a Penn State University "Rock Ethics Institute" blog), and stick to my conviction that yes, human activity is changing the behavior of our weather engines (solar heat, our atmosphere, the rotation of the earth on his slightly wobbly axis, the pressure-gradient force affecting rising air masses over warm waters in the Northern Hemisphere (e.g. Gulf of Mexico) over time, and can therefore result in climate change. I am not "Chicken Little," thank you.
Anyway, it is imperative that we think of those yet voiceless children of the "What About Us? Generation," that I've labeled "The WAUG Kids," whose lives will be affected strongly by the policies we follow today, personally and collectively.
If Tyndall was right in 1859, then the accelerated growth of Earth's human population, and the demands that population is putting on those who dig and drill the coal and oil for our use have to be having a measureable effect. The data that keeps rolling in seems to confirm that common-sense idea. If we add coal slurry, the denuding of hills and mountainsides, the slashing and burning of substantial amounts of the Amazon rain forest, the smoldering of tropical peat bogs, the thawing tundra in Alaska and Siberia, which is releasing a gas from clathrates which is far more heat-trapping than CO2, namely methane, or "natural gas" (CH4) and the methane produced by factory farms raising pigs, cattle and even chickens, we get a red flag or two, don't we, indicating that we are not being kind to the Earth?
If we are not kind to the Earth, from which living things, including human beings, ultimately spring, then can we seriously feel that the Earth kids inherit from us in 2090 or 2100 will be "okay" by today's standards?
Will enough harm have been done to the weather systems that we’ve grown accustomed to over our life spans be so radical that climates will be completely different in a hundred years? Will the conditions be better than they are now, or, as the IPCC indicates, modestly and conservatively, a progressively less comfortable, stable and livable?
I've had to step outside of science itself to find a way to move people to be more respectful to each other, and other living things, and our home planet itself. While by and large Americans, like many people elsewhere, consider climate issues much less important that other issues, everyone on earth seems to have responded one way or another to the death just days ago of a musician whose music has sold millions and millions of albums, CDs, and DVDs, and whose words and dances, rhythms and gestures have been copied by people of every creed, color and culture, at least privately. It is to musicians now that I am turning, beginning now on Blogger with Musicforabetterworld.blogspot.com, Soon that will be joined by my membership website, http://bostonmusicianscoop.com, in September, 2009, and leading ultimately to an even more universal on-line project next year.
These sites will be blogs, allowing for interaction between me and the performers, writers, composers, producers, technicians, managers and merchandisers whom I foresee joining voluntarily to create powerful and universally appealing music that will nudge humanity ever so slightly in the positive direction, toward more care and responsibility toward one another and toward Earth itself, and all the living beings that populate the planet. I hope to work in social networking through established systems like MySpace and Twitter, Plaxo and FaceBook, too. I see my own role as simply the MC, not the DJ or the maestro. As host, I know I'll meet fascinating people on line and in person, and I hope you understand that "fascinating" does not necessarily mean "well known" or "established," though being a member of my web family may certainly lead to that kind of thing, and I foresee established stars joining us enthusiastically.
Those of you involved with music, please visit my current Blogger site and later, when it's ready, http://bostonmusicianscoop.com and those sites that may follow. Those of you who are not musicians in any form can help, too. You can contribute your comments to http://savethewaugkids.blogspot.com, and can use Plaxo, MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, and every other means you can think of to send well disposed people to http://musicforabetterworld.blogspot.com.
Encourage everyone to contact me as well at james@bostonmusicianscoop.com or my Gmail which you can reach through YouTube - and you can watch my impromptu "speech" announcing bostonmusicianscoop.com at this link.
If you've gotten this far, I hope we're still friends. Climate change generally raises hackles - too political, too controversial - a big hoax - blasphemy! are among the reactions I've heard from people I respect in their own area of expertise. Relax - I'm just an old relic of the pencil and ruler days, the days before even the invention of white-out, or self-correcting typewriters. Thanks for your comments and your attention.
Twainman AKA James P Louviere "DrHanzonScience" on my YouTube channel!
