OMNI
CLIMATE CHANGE NEWSLETTER Series 2, #1, May 1, 2015 (Continuing and Carbon Caps Task Force and OMNI350 Newsletters).
Compiled by Dick Bennett
FOR A CULTURE of PEACE, JUSTICE, SPECIES, AND THE LAND
This newsletter supports the OMNI CLIMATE CHANGE BOOK FORUM (2006-), OMNI’S CLIMATE CHANGE LOBBY Committee (fee and dividend campaign), and all other OMNI activities to reduce the effects of global warming.
WE, THE PEOPLE TAKING ACTION AGAINST CO2
Newsletters
Index:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/OMNIPeaceDept
Contents
Contents: Series II, #1, April 30, 2015
Introduction: From 2007 to 2015
Thomas Casten, Our Climate Cassandra, His Forty Year Effort
to Warn the World
to Warn the World
The Causes and Consequences of the Crisis
Naomi Klein, Capitalism vs. the Climate
Lester Brown, The World on the Edge and The Great
Transition
Transition
The IPCC Report in Haiku
Wagner and Weitzman, The Economic Consequences of a Hotter
Planet
Planet
What Should We, Can We Do”
Nicholas Stern, Why Are We Waiting?
Jennifer Jacquet, Is Shame Necessary?
Robert Drinan, The Mobilization of Shame
Zeese and Flowers, A Mass Movementto Hold Enemies of
Environment Accountable
Environment Accountable
Tomgram/Dahr Jamail, Off the Climate Precipice?
Additional Books
Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time
Heinberg, Society Beyond Fossil Fuels (recently published essays)
and Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Society
Greer, After Progress
LaConte, Surviving Economic and Environmental Collapse
Contact your City Council
This newsletter, and all of OMNI’s newsletters, are intended to enable readers to function more effectively as individual citizens, as individual webs of influence, and even more effectively by joining with other individuals. Each of us as individuals is equally responsible and accountable for what happens to our planet—to our children and grandchildren. We must and can intensify and enlarge the familiar recycle, reuse, reduce measures within the daily control of our lives. But we are not equal in causing the national footprint, a print that must be drastically reduced. The owners (the stockholders and managers) of fossil fuel and automotive companies (and airlines) and their political supporters continue the old drive for profits through growth and development. (Airbus received 40 billion dollars of orders for new planes, and Boeing 30 billion.) They are the real public enemies. We are too late to stop, for example, the expansion of XNA (new runway, new concourse, and new highway being planned costing millions of dollars), but we can all resist by taking only essential trips. We can be resilient, we can adapt.
And then, deep breath, we can start thinking big: slowing and reducing C02, Hertsgaard has written, will require the money and effort of the Apollo program plus the Manhattan Project. We are not helpless whether acting as individuals in our own reduce, recycle, reuse lives, or our shouldering with others for the big changes needed in our economic and political culture. Working together. We, the People. --Dick
(The earliest OMNI climate newsletters were entitled Carbon Caps Task Force Newsletter, edited by Dick Bennett: #1, Nov. 24, 2006; 2007: #2 July 11, #3 July 24, #4 August 28, #5 Dec. 13. Robert McAfee followed as editor with a new title, OMNI350 Newsletter. Dick resumed editing the newsletter for 2009 and then again in 2013. We now need a new editor. Let’s call this newsletter Series II, #1.)
OUR CASSANDRA: A REMINDER OF HOW LONG CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES HAVE BEEN KNOWN:
The Jan.-Feb., 2014, no. of Skeptical Inquiry contains an astonishing essay by Thomas Casten recounting his efforts since 1975 to alert people to the facts of warming and how to slow or stop C02 emissions by making it profitable: "Reduce Greenhouse Emissions and Make a Profit: My Forty-Year Focus on Climate Change."http://www.csicop.org/si/show/reduce_greenhouse_emissions_and_make_a_profit_my_forty-year_focus_on_climat/
In 1998 his book on climate was published: Turning Off the Heat: Why America Must Double Energy Efficiency to Save Money and Reduce Global Warming (Prometheus).
Dick
THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS
KLEIN, NAOMI, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate rev. by Dick Bennett. http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2015/04/naomi-klein-newsletter-1-this-changes.html
What’s at stake: Klein describes a planetary crisis, measured by the rising amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, the increasing global temperature, consequent weather extremes, melting ice, rising oceans, and more forest fires. Meanwhile, our society continues its business as usual, suicidal complacency, and the US GOP-controlled Senate even seeks to ban a major possible remedy--carbon fee/dividend. One of the few groups not complacent is ours, but we can amplify our voice, and one way is through Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on economic growth through advertising unnecessary commodities and on imperial domination than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. -- A modification of a comment by Martin Luther King, Jr.
CONTENTS
I. Analysis of This Changes Every Thing
Introduction to the book
Chapter by chapter outlines and notes
II. Commentary, Interviews, Action
Publisher’s Summary
Foster and Clark, “Crossing the River of Fire,” Monthly Review
Dick’s Analysis
Full Text
Follow-up in Monthly Review
Dick, Klein’s Plea for Sanity
Abel Tomlinson’s 2-part Review in Free Weekly
Two Interviews of Klein
The Colbert Report
Klaus Brinkbaumer in Der Spiegel, Capitalism Caused Climate Change
Pope-Weidemann, Klein’s Call for Massive Protest in UK
Dick’s Letter to the UofA’s Indigenous People of America’s DAY Committee
Foster and Clark, “Crossing the River of Fire,” Monthly Review
Dick’s Analysis
Full Text
Follow-up in Monthly Review
Dick, Klein’s Plea for Sanity
Abel Tomlinson’s 2-part Review in Free Weekly
Two Interviews of Klein
The Colbert Report
Klaus Brinkbaumer in Der Spiegel, Capitalism Caused Climate Change
Pope-Weidemann, Klein’s Call for Massive Protest in UK
Dick’s Letter to the UofA’s Indigenous People of America’s DAY Committee
III. Related Writings and Films:
Gar Alperovitz, “The Political-Economic Foundations of a Sustainable System”
Ladha and Kirk, “Capitalism Is Just a Story,” Essay and Film
Venus Project Documentary Series: “The Choice Is Ours”
Kai Wright on MLK,JR’s Legacy
Ladha and Kirk, “Capitalism Is Just a Story,” Essay and Film
Venus Project Documentary Series: “The Choice Is Ours”
Kai Wright on MLK,JR’s Legacy
FULL TEXT OF FOSTER AND CLARK’S REVIEW
LESTER BROWN, THE GREAT TRANSITION: SHIFTING FROM FOSSIL FUELS TO SOLAR AND WIND ENERGY. 2015.
Chapter 1, “Changing Direction,” the Introduction to the book
The most important passage is this short paragraph on p. 6:
“Time is everything. We cannot turn back the clock and prevent the earth’s temperature from rising. That is already happening. But if we move to dramatically cut carbon emissions with a wartime sense of urgency, we may be able to slow the rise and prevent climate change from spiraling out of control. This means restructuring the world energy economy: saying farewell to fossil fuels, embracing efficiency, and quickly expanding the use of renewable forms of energy.”
Quite a lot can be said about the passage; the book elaborates it.
A few words from p. 17 intensify key sentences: “This requires a total restructuring of the global energy economy,” and “the new energy transition must be condensed into the next 10 years.” (my italics). An important grammatical feature is the frequency with which he carefully qualifies statements with conditionals such as could, if (“if the world takes climate change seriously”). Both books were written to adults.
Chapter by chapter he makes the dire case, familiar to everyone who has been reading about CC during the past decade. Part I explains how we must and could “dramatically cut carbon emissions with a wartime sense of urgency”: Chap. 2, “The Rise and Fall of Oil”; Chap. 3, “Closing Coal Plants”; Chap. 4, “Nuclear Power in Decline.” Part II explains how we must and could “quickly [expand] the use of renewable forms of energy”: Chap. 5, “The Solar Revolution”; Chap. 6, “The Age of Wind”; Chap. 7, “Tapping the Earth’s Heat” (geothermal); Chap. 8, “Hydropower: Past and Future.” Chap. 9, “The Accelerating Transition,” concludes the book. Note the absence of a chapter on efficiency, one of the key requirements for the restructuring asserted in the key paragraph, but attention is paid to the subject throughout the book, and additional resources are listed on p. 155.
Thus Brown’s The Great Transition resembles Klein’s This Changes Everything by their urgent argument for global, radical system change, except that Klein argues we must jettison the capitalist economic system in order to change the energy regime.
The Great Transition also resembles Brown’s 2011 book, and this is a lesson to all of us who have read the two books, that the world including the environmentalists have not been listening well (Casten). Here are my notes on
World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse by Lester Brown (2011) written in 2011. Note a major change in The Great Transition: Brown has dropped population growth as a chief cause of the crisis.
“Brown asks for systematic, drastic change in our entire way of life, which he labels “Plan B.” Plan B's 4 goals are: stabilizing climate, stabilizing population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the economy's natural support systems, and all are "mutually dependent. All are essential to feeding the world's people." And we must accomplish the goals--change the world--quickly. The "overarching question is, Can we change fast enough?"
He does not assure us that we can. He does cite successful social changes in our country (overturning Jim Crow in the South, the Civil Rights legislation), and he suggests many ways we as individuals, in groups, and our government on all levels can take action, but he makes clear how difficult changing for warming will be because it involves overturning the whole society, the entire global social and economic structure. Three chapters for the deteriorating world conditions (rising temp, melting ice, expanding deserts, food insecurity, etc.). Three chapters for the consequences (refugees, failing states, increasing hunger, etc.). And five chapters for Plan B, which calls for “massive restructuring,” and in chapter after chapter reveals the enormous difficulties, including the estimated trillions of dollars in costs. The last chapter offers actions for individuals, but only after summarizing the dire global situation.
A Sobering, Total Analysis of What We Must Change and How Much It Will Cost to Prevent Catastrophic Social and Economic Collapse. Telling the darkest truths and calling upon the people to shift into total defense against warming, World on the Edge is a book for mature adults.”
Dick
Brown, forerunner and leader, keeps his attention on the systemicchanges needed to avoid the worst. Oddly, Klein does not mention him, nor the keen Marxist forerunner of her book by Magdoff and Foster, What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism (2011). She has reached her similar conclusions apparently independently of their books by her massive empirical study of the harmful consequences of capitalism.
 | Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet Gernot Wagner & Martin L. Weitzman Hardcover | 2015 | $27.95 / £19.95 | 264 pp. | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | 3 line illus. 5 eBook | ISBN: 9781400865475 | Our eBook editions are available from these online vendors | Book Trailer |
If you had a 10 percent chance of having a fatal car accident, you'd take necessary precautions. If your finances had a 10 percent chance of suffering a severe loss, you'd reevaluate your assets. So if we know the world is warming and there's a 10 percent chance this might eventually lead to a catastrophe beyond anything we could imagine, why aren't we doing more about climate change right now? We insure our lives against an uncertain future--why not our planet? In Climate Shock, Gernot Wagner and Martin Weitzman explore in lively, clear terms the likely repercussions of a hotter planet, drawing on and expanding from work previously unavailable to general audiences. They show that the longer we wait to act, the more likely an extreme event will happen. A city might go underwater. A rogue nation might shoot particles into the Earth's atmosphere, geoengineering cooler temperatures. Zeroing in on the unknown extreme risks that may yet dwarf all else, the authors look at how economic forces that make sensible climate policies difficult to enact, make radical would-be fixes like geoengineering all the more probable. What we know about climate change is alarming enough. What we don't know about the extreme risks could be far more dangerous. Wagner and Weitzman help readers understand that we need to think about climate change in the same way that we think about insurance--as a risk management problem, only here on a global scale. Demonstrating that climate change can and should be dealt with--and what could happen if we don't do so--Climate Shock tackles the defining environmental and public policy issue of our time. Gernot Wagner is lead senior economist at the Environmental Defense Fund. He is the author of But Will the Planet Notice? (Hill & Wang). Martin L. Weitzman is professor of economics at Harvard University. His books include Income, Wealth, and the Maximum Principle. For more, see www.gwagner.com andscholar.harvard.edu/weitzman. "'Top 10: Business & Economics' for Spring 2015."--Publishers Weekly "Economists Gernot Wagner and Martin Weitzman deliver a high-voltage shock in their analysis of the costs of climate change."--Nature "[U]seful for policy workers in helping shape dollars-and-cents arguments about the environment and global climate."--Kirkus "[A]n impressive (and concise) book."--Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist "This informative, convincing, and easily read book offers general audiences the basic case for global climate mitigation."--Ian Parry, Finance & Development "This book represents a synthesis of research and offers a clear-headed look at what must be done."--Toronto Star "Climate Shock is refreshing in many ways: it starts with a pop quiz, reveals the script of a (possible) new James Bond film and gives you the solution to climate change on page 23. That should be enough to entice a broad readership. However, the book's true value lies elsewhere, in the authors' ability to present a complex and multifaceted topic in plain, simple terms. They challenge assumptions and don't shy away from a clear call for action."--Swenja Surminski, Times Higher Education "For the intelligent lay reader wanting a lively, lucid assessment of the economic consequences of global warming. . . . [W]ell worth reading."--Pilita Clark, Financial Times Endorsement: "A remarkable book on climate change, Climate Shock is deeply insightful, challenging, eye-opening, thought-provoking, and sheer fun to read. It will help you to think clearly and incisively about one of the most important issues of our generation."--Jeffrey Sachs, author of The Price of Civilization Preface: Pop Quiz ix Chapter 1. 911 1 Chapter 2. 411 30 Chapter 3. Fat Tails 48 Chapter 4. Willful Blindness 80 Chapter 5. Bailing Out the Planet 92 Chapter 6. 007 116 Chapter 7. What You Can Do 128 Epilogue: A Different Kind of Optimism 148 Acknowledgments 153 Notes 155 Bibliography 207 Index 243 |
WHAT WE CAN AND SHOULD DO
· Buying Options
Hardcover | $27.95 Trade | £19.95 | ISBN: 9780262029186 | 376 pp. | 6 x 9 in | 21 figures, 4 tables| April 2015
Why Are We Waiting?
The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate Change By Nicholas Stern
The risks of climate change are potentially immense. The benefits of taking action are also clear: we can see that economic development, reduced emissions, and creative adaptation go hand in hand. A committed and strong low-carbon transition could trigger a new wave of economic and technological transformation and investment, a new era of global and sustainable prosperity. Why, then, are we waiting? In this book, Nicholas Stern explains why, notwithstanding the great attractions of a new path, it has been so difficult to tackle climate change effectively. He makes a compelling case for climate action now and sets out the forms that action should take.
Stern argues that the risks and costs of climate change are worse than estimated in the landmark Stern Review in 2006—and far worse than implied by standard economic models. He reminds us that we have a choice. [Remember Al Gore’s outstanding textbook is entitled Our Choice. –Dick] We can rely on past technologies, methods, and institutions—or we can embrace change, innovation, and international collaboration. The first might bring us some short-term growth but would lead eventually to chaos, conflict, and destruction. The second could bring about better lives for all and growth that is sustainable over the long term, and help win the battle against worldwide poverty. The science warns of the dangers of neglect; the economics and technology show what we can do and the great benefits that will follow; an examination of the ethics points strongly to a moral imperative for action. Why are we waiting?
About the Author
Lord Stern is I. G. Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics, President of the British Academy, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, and former Chief Economist at the World Bank. He was the lead author of the influential Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, the findings of which he adapted in his book for general readers, The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity (also known as A Blueprint for a Safer Planet).
Endorsements
“Nicholas Stern makes a thoughtful and passionate case for why addressing climate change is urgent and can no longer be postponed. Striking a hopeful note, Stern explains how recent technological advances have lowered the cost of taking action and made cooperation easier, and he lays out a path for the way forward.”
—Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor, Columbia University; Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001
—Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor, Columbia University; Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001
“Nicholas Stern’s analytical rigor, communication skills, and pragmatic focus on what works have given him a unique and vital role in global climate change policy. Why Are We Waiting? is a brilliant synthesis of his insights and arguments. Combining fascinating analysis of climate change science, the economics of innovation, the ethics of discount rates, and the practicalities of achieving useful international agreement, it is both an important contribution to economic theory and a persuasive call to action.”
—Adair Turner, former Chair of the UK Committee on Climate Change and of the UK Financial Services Authority
—Adair Turner, former Chair of the UK Committee on Climate Change and of the UK Financial Services Authority
“The word ‘urgency’ is often over-invoked and over-used, but Stern’s far-reaching work has made clear why we have to do, right now, the best we can to stop an increasingly worsening environmental calamity. This book, following Stern’s earlier contributions, presents an excellent overview of the complex issues that underlie our environmental predicament, involving science, ethics, decision theory, and politics. Stern’s mastery over the diverse areas, combined with his gift of communication, makes this book a hugely significant contribution to public reasoning in our precarious world.”
—Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University; Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1998
—Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University; Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1998
“Designing good policies to address climate change is important and has not been easy. Getting a country’s political process to generate a good policy response is hard. Organizing desirable international cooperation is even harder. We are fortunate to have this new book by Nicholas Stern, which brings such clear and insightful analysis to these issues, being deeply concerned while recognizing the opportunities available. The book does a terrific job of addressing all three parts of its subtitle: 'Logic, Urgency, and Promise.’”
—Peter Diamond, Institute Professor Emeritus, MIT; Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2010
—Peter Diamond, Institute Professor Emeritus, MIT; Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2010
“Nicholas Stern provides a thoughtful and highly valuable contribution to the increasingly important field of the economics of climate change. His focus on radical innovation, co-benefits of climate action, and transformational changes will provoke a lively debate on climate mitigation policies. This debate is urgently needed for a better design of climate policies.”
—Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair of Working Group III of the IPCC; Director of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change; Chief Economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Professor of the Economics of Climate Change, Technische Universität Berlin
—Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair of Working Group III of the IPCC; Director of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change; Chief Economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Professor of the Economics of Climate Change, Technische Universität Berlin
Also by this Author
Is Shame Necessary?
- Hardcover$24.00
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An urgent, illuminating exploration of the social nature of shame and of how it might be used to promote large-scale political change and social reform.
In cultures that champion the individual, guilt is advertised as the cornerstone of conscience. But while guilt holds individuals to personal standards, it is powerless in the face of corrupt institutions. In recent years, we as consumers have sought to assuage our guilt about flawed social and environmental practices and policies by, for example, buying organic foods or fair-trade products. Unless nearly everyone participates, however, the impact of individual consumer consciousness is ineffective.
Is Shame Necessary? presents us with a trenchant case for public shaming as a nonviolent form of resistance that can challenge corporations and even governments to change policies and behaviors that are detrimental to the environment.Jennifer Jacquet argues that public shaming, when it has been retrofitted for the age of social media and aimed in the proper direction, can help compensate for the limitations of guilt in a globalized world. Jacquet leaves us with a new understanding of how public shame, when applied in the right way and at the right time, has the capacity to keep us from failing other species in life’s fabric and, ultimately, from failing ourselves.
PRAISE
Robert Sapolsky, author of Monkeyluv
“In the age of Anthony Weiner and Miley Cyrus, shame seems an antiquated concept—a quaint tool of conformity-obsessed collectivist societies, replete with scarlet letters and loss of face. In this thought-provoking, wonderfully readable book, Jennifer Jacquet explores the psychology and sociology of shame. In the process, she argues that shaming is far from obsolete, and can be an effective weapon wielded by the weak against the strong.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow
“Shame is no longer unfashionable, thanks to Jennifer Jacquet. This book describes, in sparkling prose, how important a sense of shame is to civilized life, and provides some fascinating insights as to the role of social media in providing a new tool to moderate shameless behavior.”
Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together
“A book that gives shame a good name—and just in time—because it reinforces our better angels, cements our communities, and crucially, because our planet needs us to feel it. Well argued, beautifully written, sophisticated and down to earth.”
Nicholas Christakis, coauthor of Connected
“Our species had emotions before we had speech. And our emotions are social, not merely individual. Jacquet trenchantly and engagingly analyzes how we might resurrect one public emotion—shame—and put it to good use in our collective lives, influencing public discourse and public policy. Shame is relevant to everything from how we drive, to how we pay our taxes, to how we choose our food. And it is even useful, Jacquet satisfyingly shows, in constraining the acts of powerful individuals and enormous corporations.”
Joseph Henrich, co–director of the Center for Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture at University of British Columbia
“Deployed throughout human history to intimidate and punish those who threatened the cooperative harmony of small communities, shame has been increasingly left on the shelf in recent centuries, its immense powers deemed impolite and unnecessary. Now, Jennifer Jacquet not only skillfully re forges and sharpens this ancient emotional weapon, she gives us our first lessons on how to wield it. Polluters, exploiters and other global parasites beware, the human community has just rearmed.”
Brian Eno, Long Now Foundation
“This is a wonderful, important and timely book. It shows us that the glue that really holds society together is not laws and diktats but honour and shame. Among (many) other things, Jennifer Jacquet has identified and articulated the social tools by which it might just be possible to encourage better long term behaviour from those big players—like corporations—who are otherwise able to find their way round the law.”
Gawker.com, “The Best Books This Year Are All Written by Women: A Guide for 2015”
“[Jacquet’s] new book mines the possibilities of shame to be used as an agent for positive change. Where the book lands is as unexpected as it is revelatory.”
Publishers Weekly
“An astute how-to and defense of shame.”
Astra Taylor, LA Times
“Jennifer Jacquet’s Is Shame Necessary? is an earnest call to employ chastisement for the greater good….her arguments are backed by interesting research and her moral conviction is refreshing, particularly given how destructive the emotion she analyzes can be.”
The Economist
“[A] thought-provoking treatise on the soft power of opprobrium, and its important role in achieving social cohesion in an ever more individualised culture….The implicit message of Is Shame Necessary, about the importance of collective social responsibility, is timely and urgent—particularly about inequality and climate change.”
Bob Holmes, New Scientist
“Jacquet systematically explores the nature of shaming and some of the psychological evidence that shows why it works. In doing so, she makes a strong case for the value of shaming for shaping and enforcing social norms….her book is the first I know to address shaming in such detail. As such, it makes a valuable contribution by drawing our attention to the potential value of this strategy whenever we seek to change how institutions behave.”
Nick Romeo, Chicago Tribune
“An incisive argument….Jacquet’s book is a powerful critique of the delusion that individual consumer choices can resolve large-scale social and environmental problems.”
Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post
“In her book, Is Shame Necessary?, [Jacquet] contrasts the limits of guilt (a personal emotion by which individuals hold themselves to their own standards) with the power of shame (a public process driven by collective norms enforced by a vigilant audience). For example, Jacquet explains that so much of what citizens do for the environment — recycle, switch on compact fluorescent light bulbs, drive hybrids — accomplishes so little because these are the actions of consumers seeking to assuage personal misgivings….Shame seeks to impose and enforce a broader standard, and that is what makes it so daunting and effective.”
Claire Fallon, Huffington Post
“Jacquet’s book [also] documents, carefully, the problems inherent in Internet shaming: disproportionality, the disinhibition effect of anonymity, and the threats to privacy rights. But she goes well beyond this to examine the totality of shame: how it works, how it can be used effectively, and in what circumstances it is an appropriate measure….She also points to instances in which shaming is a first step to more institutionalized penalties for behaviors we no longer find acceptable. In Jacquet’s view, shaming is a tool that can effectively regulate harmful acts for which there’s no official punishment.”
“In the age of Anthony Weiner and Miley Cyrus, shame seems an antiquated concept—a quaint tool of conformity-obsessed collectivist societies, replete with scarlet letters and loss of face. In this thought-provoking, wonderfully readable book, Jennifer Jacquet explores the psychology and sociology of shame. In the process, she argues that shaming is far from obsolete, and can be an effective weapon wielded by the weak against the strong.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow
“Shame is no longer unfashionable, thanks to Jennifer Jacquet. This book describes, in sparkling prose, how important a sense of shame is to civilized life, and provides some fascinating insights as to the role of social media in providing a new tool to moderate shameless behavior.”
Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together
“A book that gives shame a good name—and just in time—because it reinforces our better angels, cements our communities, and crucially, because our planet needs us to feel it. Well argued, beautifully written, sophisticated and down to earth.”
Nicholas Christakis, coauthor of Connected
“Our species had emotions before we had speech. And our emotions are social, not merely individual. Jacquet trenchantly and engagingly analyzes how we might resurrect one public emotion—shame—and put it to good use in our collective lives, influencing public discourse and public policy. Shame is relevant to everything from how we drive, to how we pay our taxes, to how we choose our food. And it is even useful, Jacquet satisfyingly shows, in constraining the acts of powerful individuals and enormous corporations.”
Joseph Henrich, co–director of the Center for Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture at University of British Columbia
“Deployed throughout human history to intimidate and punish those who threatened the cooperative harmony of small communities, shame has been increasingly left on the shelf in recent centuries, its immense powers deemed impolite and unnecessary. Now, Jennifer Jacquet not only skillfully re forges and sharpens this ancient emotional weapon, she gives us our first lessons on how to wield it. Polluters, exploiters and other global parasites beware, the human community has just rearmed.”
Brian Eno, Long Now Foundation
“This is a wonderful, important and timely book. It shows us that the glue that really holds society together is not laws and diktats but honour and shame. Among (many) other things, Jennifer Jacquet has identified and articulated the social tools by which it might just be possible to encourage better long term behaviour from those big players—like corporations—who are otherwise able to find their way round the law.”
Gawker.com, “The Best Books This Year Are All Written by Women: A Guide for 2015”
“[Jacquet’s] new book mines the possibilities of shame to be used as an agent for positive change. Where the book lands is as unexpected as it is revelatory.”
Publishers Weekly
“An astute how-to and defense of shame.”
Astra Taylor, LA Times
“Jennifer Jacquet’s Is Shame Necessary? is an earnest call to employ chastisement for the greater good….her arguments are backed by interesting research and her moral conviction is refreshing, particularly given how destructive the emotion she analyzes can be.”
The Economist
“[A] thought-provoking treatise on the soft power of opprobrium, and its important role in achieving social cohesion in an ever more individualised culture….The implicit message of Is Shame Necessary, about the importance of collective social responsibility, is timely and urgent—particularly about inequality and climate change.”
Bob Holmes, New Scientist
“Jacquet systematically explores the nature of shaming and some of the psychological evidence that shows why it works. In doing so, she makes a strong case for the value of shaming for shaping and enforcing social norms….her book is the first I know to address shaming in such detail. As such, it makes a valuable contribution by drawing our attention to the potential value of this strategy whenever we seek to change how institutions behave.”
Nick Romeo, Chicago Tribune
“An incisive argument….Jacquet’s book is a powerful critique of the delusion that individual consumer choices can resolve large-scale social and environmental problems.”
Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post
“In her book, Is Shame Necessary?, [Jacquet] contrasts the limits of guilt (a personal emotion by which individuals hold themselves to their own standards) with the power of shame (a public process driven by collective norms enforced by a vigilant audience). For example, Jacquet explains that so much of what citizens do for the environment — recycle, switch on compact fluorescent light bulbs, drive hybrids — accomplishes so little because these are the actions of consumers seeking to assuage personal misgivings….Shame seeks to impose and enforce a broader standard, and that is what makes it so daunting and effective.”
Claire Fallon, Huffington Post
“Jacquet’s book [also] documents, carefully, the problems inherent in Internet shaming: disproportionality, the disinhibition effect of anonymity, and the threats to privacy rights. But she goes well beyond this to examine the totality of shame: how it works, how it can be used effectively, and in what circumstances it is an appropriate measure….She also points to instances in which shaming is a first step to more institutionalized penalties for behaviors we no longer find acceptable. In Jacquet’s view, shaming is a tool that can effectively regulate harmful acts for which there’s no official punishment.”
SEE MORE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Shame Explained 3
2 Guilt’s Ascendancy 27
3 The Limits to Guilt 43
4 Bad Apples 60
5 How Norms Become Normal 77
6 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Shaming 98
7 The Scarlet Internet 118
8 Shaming in the Attention Economy 135
9 Reactions to Shaming 149
10 The Sweet Spot of Shame 170
Appendix: Shame Totem v.2.1 185
Acknowledgments 189
Notes 193
Index 203
2 Guilt’s Ascendancy 27
3 The Limits to Guilt 43
4 Bad Apples 60
5 How Norms Become Normal 77
6 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Shaming 98
7 The Scarlet Internet 118
8 Shaming in the Attention Economy 135
9 Reactions to Shaming 149
10 The Sweet Spot of Shame 170
Appendix: Shame Totem v.2.1 185
Acknowledgments 189
Notes 193
Index 203
A strong case not only for shaming governments which violate human rights, but also extends to those which refuse to defend human rights.
Part i, the United Nations and hum,an rights
Part ii, the United States and human rights
Part iii, human rights transform the world
Holding the Silent Killers of Environmental Destruction Accountable | |
 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Op-E, NationofChange, April 29, 2014: The findings of the most recent IPCC report are sobering. We have fifteen years to mitigate climate disaster. It is up to us to make a major transition to a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy economy within that timeframe. Big Energy and our plutocratic government are not going to do it without effective pressure from a people-powered movement. Earth Day is no longer about celebration. We are making Mother Earth sick by using extreme methods to extract fuels from her mountains and from beneath her surface and by massive spills of oil, chemicals and radiation. |
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December 17, 2013 Since a nuclear weapon went off over Tomgram: Dahr Jamail, The Climate Change Scorecard In more recent decades, a second world-ending (or at least world-as-we-know-it ending) possibility has crept into human consciousness. Until relatively recently, our burning of fossil fuels and spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere represented such a slow-motion approach to end times that we didn’t even notice what was happening. Only in the 1970s did the idea of global warming or climate change begin to penetrate the scientific Still, despite ever more powerful weather disruptions -- what the news now likes to call “extreme weather” events, including monster typhoons, hurricanes, and winter storms, wildfires, heat waves,droughts, and global temperature records -- disaster has still seemed far enough off. Despite a drumbeat of news about startling environmental changes -- massive ice melts in Arctic waters, glaciers shrinking worldwide, the Greenland ice shieldbeginning to melt, as well as the growing acidification of ocean waters -- none of this, not even Superstorm Sandy smashing intothat iconic global capital, New York, and drowning part of itssubway system, has broken through as a climate change 9/11. Not in the United States anyway. We’ve gone, that is, from no motion to slow motion to a kind of denial of motion. And yet in the scientific community, where people continue to study the effects of global warming, the tone is changing. It is, you might say, growing more apocalyptic. Just in recent weeks, a report from the National Academy of Scientists suggested that “hard-to-predict sudden changes” in the environment due to the effects of climate change might drive the planet to a “tipping point.” Beyond that, “major and rapid changes [could] occur” -- and these might be devastating, including that “wild card,” the sudden melting of parts of the vast Antarctic ice shelf, driving sea levels far higher. At the same time, the renowned climate scientist James Hansen and 17 colleagues published a hair-raising report in the journal PLoS. They suggest that the accepted target of keeping global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius is a fool’s errand. If global temperatures come anywhere near that level -- the rise so far has been less than one degree since the industrial revolution began -- it will already be too late, they claim, to avoid disastrous consequences. Consider this the background “temperature” for Dahr Jamail’slatest piece for TomDispatch, an exploration of what climate scientists just beyond the mainstream are thinking about how climate change will affect life on this planet. What, in other words, is the worst that we could possibly face in the decades to come? The answer: a nightmare scenario. So buckle your seat belt. There’s a tumultuous ride ahead. Tom I grew up planning for my future, wondering which college I would attend, what to study, and later on, where to work, which articles to write, what my next book might be, how to pay a mortgage, and which mountaineering trip I might like to take next. Now, I wonder about the future of our planet. During a recent visit with my eight-year-old niece and 10- and 12-year-old nephews, I stopped myself from asking them what they wanted to do when they grew up, or any of the future-oriented questions I used to ask myself. I did so because the reality of their generation may be that questions like where they will work could be replaced by: Where will they get their fresh water? What food will be available? And what parts of their country and the rest of the world will still be habitable? community, as in the 1990s it edged its way into the rest of our world, and slowly into popular culture, too. Still, despite ever more powerful weather disruptions -- what the news now likes to call “extreme weather” events, including monstertyphoons, hurricanes, and winter storms, wildfires, heat waves,droughts, and global temperature records -- disaster has still seemed far enough off. Despite a drumbeat of news about startling environmental changes -- massive ice melts in Arctic waters, glaciers shrinking worldwide, the Greenland ice shieldbeginning to melt, as well as the growing acidification of ocean waters -- none of this, not even Superstorm Sandy smashing intothat iconic global capital, New York, and drowning part of itssubway system, has broken through as a climate change 9/11. Not in the United States anyway. We’ve gone, that is, from no motion to slow motion to a kind of denial of motion. And yet in the scientific community, where people continue to study the effects of global warming, the tone is changing. It is, you might say, growing more apocalyptic. Just in recent weeks, a report from the National Academy of Scientistssuggested that “hard-to-predict sudden changes” in the environment due to the effects of climate change might drive the planet to a “tipping point.” Beyond that, “major and rapid changes [could] occur” -- and these might be devastating, including that “wild card,” the sudden melting of parts of the vast Antarctic ice shelf, driving sea levels far higher. At the same time, the renowned climate scientist James Hansen and 17 colleagues published a hair-raising report in the journalPLoS. They suggest that the accepted target of keeping global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius is a fool’s errand. If global temperatures come anywhere near that level -- the rise so far has been less than one degree since the industrial revolution began -- it will already be too late, they claim, to avoid disastrous consequences. Consider this the background “temperature” for Dahr Jamail’slatest piece for TomDispatch, an exploration of what climate scientists just beyond the mainstream are thinking about how climate change will affect life on this planet. What, in other words, is the worst that we could possibly face in the decades to come? The answer: a nightmare scenario. So buckle your seat belt. There’s a tumultuous ride ahead. Tom Are We Falling Off the Climate Precipice? Scientists Consider Extinction By Dahr Jamail I grew up planning for my future, wondering which college I would attend, what to study, and later on, where to work, which articles to write, what my next book might be, how to pay a mortgage, and which mountaineering trip I might like to take next. Now, I wonder about the future of our planet. During a recent visit with my eight-year-old niece and 10- and 12-year-old nephews, I stopped myself from asking them what they wanted to do when they grew up, or any of the future-oriented questions I used to ask myself. I did so because the reality of their generation may be that questions like where they will work could be replaced by: Where will they get their fresh water? What food will be available? And what parts of their country and the rest of the world will still be habitable? Click here to read more of this dispatch. |  | Visit our sister sites:   |
At the same time, the renowned climate scientist James Hansen and 17 colleagues published a hair-raising report in the journalPLoS. They suggest that the accepted target of keeping global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius is a fool’s errand. If global temperatures come anywhere near that level -- the rise so far has been less than one degree since the industrial revolution began -- it will already be too late, they claim, to avoid disastrous consequences. Consider this the background “temperature” for Dahr Jamail’s latest piece for TomDispatch, an exploration of what climate scientists just beyond the mainstream are thinking about how climate change will affect life on this planet. What, in other words, is the worst that we could possibly face in the decades to come? The answer: a nightmare scenario. So buckle your seat belt. There’s a tumultuous ride ahead. Tom I grew up planning for my future, wondering which college I would attend, what to study, and later on, where to work, which articles to write, what my next book might be, how to pay a mortgage, and which mountaineering trip I might like to take next. Now, I wonder about the future of our planet. During a recent visit with my eight-year-old niece and 10- and 12-year-old nephews, I stopped myself from asking them what they wanted to do when they grew up, or any of the future-oriented questions I used to ask myself. I did so because the reality of their generation may be that questions like where they will work could be replaced by: Where will they get their fresh water? What food will be available? And what parts of their country and the rest of the world will still be habitable? |
ADDITIONAL RECENT BOOKS
DALE JAMIESON, REASON IN A DARK TIME: WHY THE STRUGGLE AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE FAILED—AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR OUR FUTURE. OXFORD UP, 2014.
Description
Description
· Not a "save the earth" book but a sober diagnosis of why we have failed and a proposal for concrete steps for how to move ahead
· Argues that common sense notions of responsibility are inadequate for moralizing acts that contribute to climate change
· Reflects on how we, as individuals, can live meaningful lives in the face of climate change
· Treats the scientific, historical, economic, and political dimensions of climate changes as well as the philosophical ones
TWO BY HEINBERG
Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels
Look Inside
Paperback – 224 pages
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Pub. Date: 2015-04-01
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Pub. Date: 2015-04-01
About the Author
Richard Heinbergis the author of eleven previous books including The Party's Over, Powerdown, Peak Everything, and The End of Growth. He is a Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world's most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels. Heinberg has given hundreds of lectures on our energy future to audiences around the world. He has been published in Natureand other journals, and has been featured in many television and theatrical documentaries.
Climate change, along with the depletion of oil, coal, and gas dictate that we will inevitably move away from our profound societal reliance on fossil fuels; but just how big a transformation will this be? While many policy-makers assume that renewable energy sources will provide an easy "plug-and-play" solution, author Richard Heinberg suggests instead that we are in for a wild ride; a "civilization reboot" on a scale similar to the agricultural and industrial revolutions.
Afterburn consists of 15 previously published essays exploring various aspects of the 21st century migration away from fossil fuels including:
· Short-term political and economic factors that impede broad-scale, organized efforts to adapt
· The origin of longer-term trends (such as consumerism), that have created a way of life that seems "normal" to most Americans, but is actually unprecedented, highly fragile, and unsustainable
· Potential opportunities and sources of conflict that are likely to emerge.
From the inevitability and desirability of more locally organized economies, to the urgent need to preserve our recent cultural achievements and the futility of pursuing economic growth above all, Afterburn offers cutting-edge perspectives and insights that challenge conventional thinking about our present, our future, and the choices in our hands.
The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
The world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if … view title info
Look Inside
Paperback – 288 pages
6 Inches × 9 Inches (w × h)
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Pub. Date: 2015-05-01
6 Inches × 9 Inches (w × h)
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Pub. Date: 2015-05-01
About the Author
John Michael Greer is a scholar of ecological history and an internationally renowned Peak Oil theorist whose blog, "The Archdruid Report," has become one of the most widely cited online resources dealing with the future of industrial society. He is the author of more than 30 books including The Wealth of Nature and The Long Descent. As well as being a certified Master Conserver and devoted organic gardener, Greer continues to practice a myriad of skills honed during the appropriate tech movement of the 1970s. He has been active in the contemporary nature spirituality movement for more than 25 years.
Progress is not just a goal in the West—it's a religion. Most people believe in its inherent value as enthusiastically and uncritically as medieval peasants believed in heaven and hell. Our faith in progress drives the popular insistence that peak oil and climate change don't actually matter—after all, our lab-coated high priests will surely bring forth yet another miracle to save us all.
Unfortunately, progress as we've known it has been entirely dependent on the breakneck exploitation of half a billion years of stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuels. As the age of this cheap, abundant energy draws to a close, progress is grinding to a halt. Unforgiving planetary limits are teaching us that our blind faith in endless exponential growth is a dangerous myth.
After Progress addresses this looming paradigm shift, exploring the shape of history from a perspective on the far side of the coming crisis. Greer's startling examination of the role our belief systems play in the evolution of our collective consciousness is required reading for anyone concerned about making sense of the future at a time when we must seek new sources of meaning, value, and hope for the era ahead.
[I recall a graduate seminar on this concept in 1959, bringing together two centuries of thought, among many courses on the history and influence of ideas. “Progress” has been a powerful idea in Western culture, and its abuse did contribute to manic features of capitalism. Now, given the urgency of the IPCC reports and books like those of Klein and Brown, do we, you and I and all informed people responding to the crisis of warming, have the leisure and time to consider the history of ideas? Greer apparently says yes. –Dick]
Life Rules: Nature's Blueprint for Surviving Economic and Environmental Collapse
Life Rules
Nature's Blueprint for Surviving Economic and Environmental Collapse
Corporate capitalism has ravaged the planet the way HIV ravages the human body, triggering a Critical Mass of cascading environmental, economic, social and political crises. Economic and climate instability, collapsing ecosystems, peak fossil fuels and devastating resource wars-if Earth were a patient, her condition would be critical. Life Rules offers a comprehensive analysis of our present circumstances combined with a holistic treatment protocol for restoring health to vulnerable human and natural communities.
Predicting that Life will last but, if we don't make some fundamental changes, life as we know it-and a lot of us-won't, Life Rulesidentifies natural laws that have allowed non-human communities to thrive and prosper for several billion years, including:
· Local self-reliance
· Mutual interdependence
· Reliance on non-fossil sources of energy
· Resource conservation, sharing and recycling
· Co-operation and co-intelligence
· Radically democratic self-organization and governance.
This sobering yet essentially optimistic manifesto is required reading for anyone concerned about our ability to live well and also within Earth's means. A powerful tool for community transition and cultural transformation, Life Rules offers a solution to our global challenges that is at once authentically hopeful, deeply inspiring and profoundly liberating.
[Many critical questions arise. Does the book offer a solution to our global challenges when it—apparently—does not discuss the economic (especially), political, and military system from which climate change developed? Will local self-reliance reduce the rise of temperature? How can we rely on sustainable energy without engaging in politics? --Dick]
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END OMNI CLIMATE CHANGE NEWSLETTER SERIES II, #1