Bloodroot - a story for 2020 in image and word

 

I

the way it pierces through

 

melting dusty pink to peapod green

leaf emerges embracing its bud

shielding from early spring chill

 

delicate grace

petals splaying open, quiet and soft

yin opening to yellow, soaking up the sun

 

leaves of snapping turtle skin

undulating matte splendor

feigning toughness, but succumbing to sunburn

 

how long the winter

cradled by Pachamama

awaiting the perfect moment

 

II

our winter has been long,

not since October

 

our winter has been persisting

deepening since

 

since social media — learn to fix a broken pencil, and watch a murder —

    network internet — connect with anyone, and lose connection —

        neoliberal economics — strive for efficiency, and lose your soul —

            nuclear destruction — win the battle, lose the war —

                internal combustion engine

— go faster, risk everything, everyone —

 

           colonialism — explore, and ruin what you find —

           imagined superiority — disillusion, disconnection —

 

domination —a fool’s errand.

 

                       

 

III

skin as thin as peach

flower ephemeral as a first crush

 

passing in the silence of night

giving way to the next

yet staying with you forever

 

forest duff grit

—perseverance—

generations linked together

built upon each    

—other—

 

pushing up through the mulch pile

no regard for what stands in the way

driving

            step by step

out of cool, dark repose

 

not through garbage, but through fertilizer,

            fuel

 

IV

brought to our knees

all our weaknesses laid bare

 

injustice to the earth

each other

—brother and sister all

plant, animal, fungus, bacteria, mineral, wind, water,

            and spirit

 

bleeding from our roots

we cry out in communal agony

 

“don’t let us return to normal!”

 

Let us begin again,

as in spring.

 

Towards the sun,

towards a new day.

A better, more just, more beautiful,

more loving way.       

 

V

we rise

 

Call it as it is.

Something I have been thinking about and has come up with more frequency recently is the importance or shunning of negative emotions such as anger, pain, and sadness in the context of our environmental situation. 

There is a notion proposed and supported by many that as a society, and even individually,  we should not linger on the unpleasant aspects of environmental destruction. I have been told that I shouldn't make my work sad or "depressing" because people already feel helpless about the plight of the natural world. 

"People don't want to feel sad and helpless." 

"There is so much negativity in the world already."

This opinion has come up in the context of art for adult audiences and children of all ages. Although I think there are certain situations where you may not want your audience to feel  negative emotions around the state of the world, they are few. 

Excluding the very young and projects with a fundamental focus of celebration and hope, I do not see the benefit of excluding sadness from the discussion about environmental issues and our situation. We, as a species, as certain cultures, have caused incredible harm on our planet and the other living beings we share it with, let alone what we have done to each other. One might argue that through technological advances, our society has improved the lives of humanity over our species' existence however, the overall impact we have had on the stability and strength of Earth's ecosystems has been disruptive and degrading. 

Our human population has shot up at an astounding rate and within our current framework, improvements in our standard of living requires more and more resources. We have polluted our lands and waters, stripped land of forests and mountains, spilled toxic waste into sensitive ecosystems, systematically killed species for "our safety" and trophies, and other's by mistake,  we have altered the very make-up of our atmosphere, and have initiated the sixth mass extinction. 

We live in the Anthropocene, which really says it all. We are as powerful as a geologic force.

For humanity, we have done amazing things. We have created beautiful art, loved each other, mastered incredibly complicated intellectual subjects, and discovered so much it boggles the mind, but for the rest of life, we have, and continue to through human-caused climate change, decimate our one and only home. And this, is incredibly sad. 

If one allows themselves to really let the fullness of this sink in and meditate on its implication for a while, t is painful and difficult, and can easily leave them with a feeling of helplessness.

When we do stop to think about all this, and feel the heavy truth, it can be very hard. If you let it, it can bring you to tears. I think it should, and I think we should let it.

Far too often people are afraid of feeling the pain and sadness to actually let themselves feel it, or even anything at all. They numb themselves with distractions and apathy, throwing their hands up renouncing their ability to improve our situation. 

This numbing and refusal to allow ourselves to really, fully sit in the depth of sadness that is our situation, is just as dangerous as continuing to burn fossil fuels at present-day rates. If we do not allow ourselves to feel fully, how could we, why would we, ever make the difficult changes to our society to solve our problems?

In The Greatest Danger -- The Deadening of the Heart and Mind chapter from Coming Back to Life a book by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown, the authors speak about refusing to feel the sadness and anger about our world's situation and the repercussions from that numbing. Below are a few passages I particularly appreciate:

"We may try to protect ourselves from feeling pain for the world, but that very effort costs us a great deal. We pay a high price in diminished awareness, understanding and authenticity. 

"Repression takes a mammoth toll on our energy and dulls our perceptions of the world around us. It is not a local anesthetic. If we won't feel pain, we won't feel much else either -- loves and losses are less intense, the sky less vivid, pleasures muted. 

"The instinct for self-preservation, recognized as the most powerful drive in the biological realm, is essential to the preservation of our species and the ongoingness of life. In the ancient Hindu chakra system, this drive is identified with the base chakra or muladhara. It represents and feeds our instinctual nature, source of our claim on life itself. 

"To be afraid to look at and respond to that which threatens all life constitutes a blocking of the muladhara, cutting off primal intelligence and energies essential to survival. This chakra not only represents a last line of defense in the protection of life, but it also feeds the erotic currents of our days and years. Opening the base chakra __ and thereby our full will to live __ means opening ourselves to the repressed tears and rage of our pain for the world.

"Silencing our deepest responses to the condition of our world not only fosters a sense of futility, but also mires us in it. Each act of denial, conscious or unconscious, is an abdication of our power to respond. It relegates us to the role of victim, before we even see what we can and want to do.

"Our pain for the world, including the fear, anger, and sorrow we feel on behalf of life on Earth is not only pervasive. It is natural and healthy. It is dysfunctional only to the extent that it is misunderstood and repressed."

So yes, shedding the veils of illusion and looking at our very difficult situation with courage and honesty is incredibly hard. It is hard to be honest with ourselves sometimes. It is hard to open ourselves up to the the feeling of helplessness, guilt, and despair. Yes, that is hard, but no one said we lived in an easy time. No one said righting our wrongs and solving our complicated challenges would come smoothly and naturally, but that should not hold us back. 

Call it as it is, and lets get on with it.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." 

-- Nelson Mandela

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life" 

--Muhammad Ali

Climate Optimism

Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President and long time climate activist, made his first Ted Talk ten years ago. Also in 2006, Gore released his book, and the very influential documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Far from being his first work on the global climate crisis, An Inconvenient Truth served as a prominent punctuation in Gore's 40+ year career working to raise awareness about, and find solutions to anthropocentric climate change. You remember the terrifying movie, right?

I remember when I first saw An Inconvenient Truth. Already studying climate change in the middle of falling down the rabbit hole of discovery and finding my career path within the field, the documentary solidified my conviction. It also made me quite deeply sad. It is a scary movie, if you let the information sink in.The truth is all that needed to be said. 

A decade later, Al Gore returned to the Ted stage with a slightly different tone. In February, 2016 Gore gave a talk titled "The case for optimism on climate change." Similar to talks he has given in the past, Gore, who has moved from politics into the business field, covers the tragedies that climate change incites, bringing the viewer up to date with events over the past ten years and giving an overview of the lengthy list of things that climate change is and will affect in our natural environment and human society. In the second half of his most recent talk however, Gore takes a turn and talks about why we should be optimistic about our situation and our future. He talks about the changes to industry, and innovations in technology that will help us break our reliance on fossil fuels. With a stable hold of reality and our dire situation, Gore still has an optimistic view and reminds us that there is reason for hope and continued targeted climate action. 

There is a good message in this talk. Climate change is terrifying, dangerous, and sad. What human's have done to the planet and ourselves is justifiable cause for some deep soul searching, as well as financial investment towards finding a better way of living on Earth. We could allow climate change to be the end of us. We could stick our heads in the sand and wait it out. However, if we allow it, climate change can be our largest spark of inspiration and ingenuity. If we allow it, climate change can be the one issue that we all unite around, know that it affects us all indiscriminately. It is not a partisan or national issue, despite some's effort to frame it as such, it is a universal issue. It is also an issue that has rallied people around the world at formal events and small gatherings, in board rooms and science labs, in places of worship and at city hall. Climate change could be our end, but as Gore points out, there are many signs that humanity is not complacent enough to let it. 

Two Young Musicians for a Future in Balance

A beautiful, strong voice far beyond her years, Takiya Blaney speaks for a revolution to improve our relationship with Mother Earth. Ta'Kaiya is from the First Nation tribe of Tla A'min in British Colombia, Canada. She has been active over the past four years as an activist, speaker, and musician. She has won a number of awards for her leadership and inspiring message as an environmental advocate and for honoring her culture and upholding the traditions of the First Nation peoples. 

Here is an example of her message as well as one of her songs at the end. 

This video has better sound for her voice, which is magically haunting.

To learn more about Ta'Kaiya Blaney

This young man has also been active for a number of years spreading a similar message. Xiuhtezcatl Martinez ask us all, especially the young people of his generation, to revolutionize our way of life to create a better future. He visions a future where humans are good stewards of the planet where we have clean healthy thriving ecosystems. He ask for climate action from individuals as well as decision makers like the United Nations General Assembly on Climate Change.

Here he is in 2015, at age 15 speaking at the 

Xiuhtezcatl is also a talented musician and along with his little brother, Itzcuauhtl, perform their original hip hop music for a better future and relationship with the Earth. 

Another of their songs, at Bioneers.

And here he is, as a younger boy, speaking about how climate change is already affecting his home in Colorado. 

The pine beetles have wreaked havoc on western North America. Climate change has been a significant part of encouraging this destruction. This is a little more about that, from my project We are all in this together.

Mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) are native to western North America, covering a swath of land from Mexico to British Columbia. With a black exoskeleton, pine beetles only measure about half a centimeter long. Pine beetle’s first three life stages, egg, larva and pupa occur under the bark of a pine tree. During the last life stage, as an adult, they can be seen flying around in the air.

When a female pine beetle burrows into a new tree to lay her eggs, she exposes the tree to blue stain fungus. This fungus inhibits the tree’s natural defense mechanism against more beetles, as well as its ability to transport water and nutrients within the tree. When a tree is infected, pine beetle larva and blue stain fungus spread throughout the tree, eventually inhibiting the tree’s ability to take up water. Eventually the pine tree will die of thirst. From the time the fungus is introduced, it may only take a few weeks for a tree to be incapable of taking up water.

A native to North America, pine beetles are not new to their ecosystems and when conditions are right they infest a new tree, killing it, but continuing its own life cycle. With climate change large areas of pine beetle’s native habitat are warming, experiencing milder winters and hotter summers. This shift in weather affects both pine trees and pine beetles. Unusually warm seasons can stress a tree and make it less robust at fighting off parasites. On the other hand, warmer weather is beneficial for pine beetles, allowing them to reproduce with a higher success rate and giving them more time and opportunity to inhabit more trees. Pine beetles have in fact doubled their reproductive rate. They used to go through one life cycle in a year and can now complete two full cycles each year. In recent years the absence of cold snaps has allowed beetle populations to explode, causing an epidemic in forests dominated by or wholly made up of pine trees.

This explosion of pine beetle populations has resulted in allowing the beetles to expand into more northern territory.  As the beetles moved north, they caused a mass dying off of forests throughout 19 US states, British Columbia and Alberta. Destruction to the forests is on the order of 10 times worse than previously recorded. Around 80 million acres of pines have been decimated and left dead. These tracks of dead trees have repercussions on all other species in the area, including humans. Stands of dead trees cater to raging forest fires. Dead trees are also not as good at holding soil to prevent erosion, slowing water flow and absorbing snow melt into the earth. These forests, which are usually a carbon sink when their trees are healthy, may easily, become a carbon source by releasing stored CO₂ and furthering global warming.

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Thank you Ta'Kaiya and Xiuhtezcatl,

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The Sound of Climate Change

This is just a re-post from https://vimeo.com/127083533. Check out the great video, like is on the bottom.

In 2013, the composition “A Song of Our Warming Planet” transformed 133 years of global temperature measurements into a haunting melody for the cello. Following its release, A Song of Our Warming Planet was featured by The New York Times, Slate, the Weather Channel, National Public Radio, io9, The Huffington Post and many others on its way to becoming a viral sensation and reaching audiences around the globe.

Now the co-creators, University of Minnesota undergraduate Daniel Crawford and geography professor Scott St. George, are back with a new composition that uses music to highlight the places where climate is changing most rapidly.

Based on surface temperature analysis from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the composition "Planetary Bands, Warming World" uses music to create a visceral encounter with more than a century’s worth of weather data collected across the northern half of the planet. (The specific dataset used as the foundation of the composition was the Combined Land-Surface Air and Sea-Surface Water Temperature Anomalies Zonal annual means.)

Crawford composed the piece featuring performance by students Julian Maddox, Jason Shu, Alastair Witherspoon and Nygel Witherspoon from the University of Minnesota’s School of Music.

As Crawford explains in the video, “Each instrument represents a specific part of the Northern Hemisphere. The cello matches the temperature of the equatorial zone. The viola tracks the mid latitudes. The two violins separately follow temperatures in the high latitudes and in the arctic.” The pitch of each note is tuned to the average annual temperature in each region, so low notes represent cold years and high notes represent warm years.

Crawford and St. George decided to focus on northern latitudes to highlight the exceptional rate of change in the Arctic. St. George says the duo plans to write music representing the southern half of the planet, too, but haven’t done so yet.

Through music, the composition bridges the divide between logic and emotion, St. George says. “We often think of the sciences and the arts as completely separate — almost like opposites, but using music to share these data is just as scientifically valid as plotting lines on a graph,” he says. “Listening to the violin climb almost the entire range of the instrument is incredibly effective at illustrating the magnitude of change — particularly in the Arctic which has warmed more than any other part of the planet.”

View The video!

My Baby

What if I never had a baby.

If I never had a baby, I would never be pregnant

Never feel that joining of me and another.

Never feel that kick from the inside.

I might never fall that deeply in love at first sight, or even before.

If I never had a baby, she would never have her first steps.

She would never make a twisted face when she first tastes a lemon.

She would never howl in the darkness of midnight

or fall bare-bottomed in the summer grass.

If I never had a baby, she would never buy a computer.

She wouldn’t work at her first job and save up to buy her first car.

My baby would never fly in a plane and travel to other countries.

She would never cut down a tree to build her home or buy oil to heat it.

She would never leave the lights on or step on an ant.

If I never had a baby, she would never be an annual birth statistic

or add to our population.

She would never consume resources or have a footprint.

She would never have to struggle and suffer in a future of climate change.

My baby would never endanger the wilderness and take the lives of others.

If I never have a baby, I would be a little sad, but try to be a little more proud.

If I never had a baby, it would benefit all living things,

even if I know she would be beautiful.

The day the people showed up.

Yesterday morning I hit snooze on my alarm and rolled over in bed, just to have a few more minutes under the comfy warm covers. When I opened my eyes again I jumped out of bed and into action. I had stayed in too long, but I got dressed I went right to the kitchen to make some coffee and fed the dog. Then I packed a small bag with some snacks, a jacket, my camera, one of my paintings and a fist full of business cards. Then I went to the guest room door and gave it a little knock. My traveling companion was up, but had also slept in. Even with our delays, we were out in the car and pulling out of the driveway by 7:30 AM, only 30 minutes later than anticipated.

After a three hour drive, made shorter by great conversation, we realized that we had missed our turn off and found ourselves slightly too far east. With a little quick thinking and only a few neighborhood streets we were back on our way towards the George Washington Bridge. From there we worked our way south along the western edge of Yonkers down to Manhattan.

The first thing to strike me as we approached our destination were an exceptional amount of New York City resident runners out and about, porting their fit bodies in the warm and hazy September morning. The local fitness fans were not the only people out on the streets on September 21, 2014. We, like so many others, had come to the city to take part in the People's Climate March. We joked with each other that couldn't find parking because so many marchers had inundated the city.

We walked onto Central Park West on 89th Street behind the end of the designated march site. For about an hour we walked down and then up Central Park West looking at the marches organizing themselves. They held signs, wore costumes, sang, and milled around taking in the scene. The atmosphere was light. Everyone's excitement and positivity was apparent by the smiles and feeling on comradery  that wafted from the crowd. Dreaded hippies, i-phone toting hipsters, Vietnam era weed legalizers, cat-loving grandmothers, youth activists, socialists, monks, drag queens, anti-fracking advocates, meditaters, bike lovers, and even a few dogs came out and a united voice to ask the heads of states who will be converging on the UN headquarters tomorrow for meaningful climate action. At one point I realized how many NYPD officers were lining the streets on either side of the organizers, and for a second I wondered if there was a chance of this ending in violence. I only let the thought cross my mind and then let it go, mustering faith that no one that I could see looked like they wanted anything more than an honest and heartfelt plea for a better future.

Waiting in line people chatted among themselves, danced and sang to the breakout of song from the trumpets, and shared snacks of apple slices and leaves of kale. The feeling of common good, desire for bettering the world, and love of all approaches to get there held everyone together with the common vision of a beautiful and healthy future. This is what really defined the day for me, it was really amazing to witness and be a part of. The police and city staff were right there with us, smiling and chatting or chuckling at the marchers' enthusiasm.

It certainly felt like a lot of people had turned out, but there is really no way of judging when you are in the middle of it all. When we heard that they were estimating over 310,000 people came and that we had filled up about 4 miles of Manhattan streets, we were overjoyed. We were, we all were, making history. We had taken a day out of our busy lives to come together to focus on something that is bigger than us all individually, to focus on the most important and far-reaching issue of our lifetimes.

By about 4:30 PM we had gotten to the end of the march. We had taken about five hours to walk from Central Park West and 83rd Street down to 11th Ave and 34th Street where the march ended. Although the end was slightly anti-climactic, we jumped and gave each other an air high five to commemorate our walk through the Big Apple.

Thank you to everyone who showed up yesterday to make history, and to all those who were with us in spirit around the world. It was a day to remember and be proud of.

There were people supporting all forms of energy, just as long as there is no greenhouse gases involved.

Don't miss the irony here. This scull was a part of a Bread & Puppet performance and represented the death machine of fossil fuels. In the background is a poster for a dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum. Up on the top of the building's facade stand significant men of science, wondering about all this... 

This is all very hard work!

Love this!

A flooding NYC was a theme. poignant.

A little comedy on some very un-funny issues, always welcome.

All generations represented.

Here they are watching the Bread & Puppet performance.

A group meditating along the side of the march, hopefully magnifying our actions.

Our wishes of what not to loose to climate change.

A Couple Noteworthy Kickstarters

Over the past few months I have spent just a little time (okay, a little more than a little...) on Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/) and I wanted to share two particularly interesting projects that I found there. As of today, they are both fully funded with time to spare!

The first project is called Eli Skipp weaves representations of her brother's RNA. Eli Skipp, the artist, is representing the RNA of her brother and the cane toad (Bufo marinus) with frame-loom weaving. She represents each base in the RNA (adenine, guanine, cytocine, and thymine) with different colors (red, yellow, blue, and green) in the weaving.

The comparison between her brother, a life-long lover of toads, and Bufo marinus she describes as being for private reasons, but that it is really speaking to the two halves of sides of her brother, and that they are both in fact him. This is interesting to me with respects of our connections to nature, whether you think of spirit animals, affinity with a certain type of animal, or the evolutionary memory of being one with nature. I digress.

Philosophy aside, I really appreciate this project for another reason as well. Skipp has found a really interesting way of representing scientific data through art. The RNA data simply dictates the colors in a weave. What does this do to the meaning of the weaving? Does it help people relate better to science, or does it make them more curious about it? Upon seeing the brother's RNA aside the toad's RNA will the similarities or differences be more obvious? Will it make it tangibly obvious what is the difference, or lack there of, between being a human and being a toad? I am curious to see this project completed. As a work in progress I think it has significant potential.

Skipp has other interesting projects and art as well. To find out more check out her blog and website:
http://eliskipp.com/blog/
http://skipp.us/
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skipp/eli-skipp-weaves-representations-of-her-brothers-r?ref=home_spotlight

The second project that I would like to share with you is called The Bicycle Diaries: My 21,000-mile Ride for the Climate. David Kroodsma has a masters degree in interdisciplinary environmental science and now works as a data journalist and a climate consultant/researcher. More to the point, Kroodsma went on a 21,000 miles journey, on a bike!

I have had dreams of doing things like this, walking to the Amazon or Alaska or Africa, but the closest I have come is various car trips collectively of about 15,000 miles (not the same). But what really sets Kroodsma's trip apart from my various adventures, and most other people's, is his mission. His strong concern about climate change fueled Kroodsma to center his trip on the idea of researching and teaching about climate change in the places he visited. He sought out interesting people and gave talks along the way, he researched how climate change affects the places we traveled through, and along the way, he gained a new perspective on how climate change is a global issue.

So, upon pedaling from San Francisco to Tierra del Fuego, what did he do? He wrote a book of course! I am jealous of his journey and inspired by his technique. What better way to connect with people, share knowledge, do the dirty work, connect with our southern neighbors who are far too often annexed by our politics, have fun, and bring back and then share his gained knowledge.

Kudos for fun and inspiring!

P.S.
His next trip is going to be across Asia!

http://rideforclimate.com/blog/
http://kroodsma.com/
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2080478170/the-bicycle-diaries-my-21000-mile-ride-for-the-cli?ref=live

Sarah Hatton and Bees

Over the past weekend A very dear friend of mine came to visit me. We had a wonderful time together staying up late and having a three hour breakfast at the kitchen table. At one point I was telling her about my We are all in this together project. Her eyes got wide and she sat up straight in her chair patiently waiting for me to finish my sentence. “Can you paint a honey bee?!” she asked me with apparent excitement.

“…ummm well, maybe, is it related?” I answered. Despite anyone’s passion, I want to stick to my theme of climate change.

“Yes!” she replied. She went on to tell me a great and very local reason why the honey bee would be perfect for my project. My friend is a new and avid bee-keeper and loves to talk to anyone about them who will listen. Her passion is not held by her alone.

Bees are integral and essential to plant pollination around the world. Along with other animals such as butterflies, moths, other insects, bats, and birds, bees have co-evolved with flowering plants. In many cases the plants rely on the these creatures for pollination and reproduction. The symbiotic relationship is a beautiful one, but it is also extremely fragile, prone to upsets at even the smallest of changes.  

Over the past decade or so, the accounts of colony collapse disorder have increased in North America and Europe sparking environmental, social and economic concern. The phenomenon itself, which is a when the worker bees of a colony suddenly disappear, is not new, but its increased frequency is a cause for concern. There are a few possible causes of colony collapse disorder including pathogens, fungus, mites, and malnutrition. Many experts, including the European Food Safety Authority, are attributing the recent increase in colony collapse on the use of modern pesticides. 

This issue is complex and still being studied to be fully understood. One person who picked up on this multidimensional and international issue is Sarah Hatton. A visual artist who predominantly works in paint, branched out to create her body of work called "Bees". 

Here is the statement of "Bees" from Hatton herself:

The link between neonicotinoid pesticides and the worldwide decline of bee populations is a crisis that cannot be ignored.

I have arranged thousands of dead honeybees in mathematical patterns symbolically linked to monoculture crops, such as the Fibonacci spiral found in the seed head of the sunflower.

The viewer experiences the vertigo of this lifeless swarm, a dizzying optical illusion that echoes the bees’ loss of ability to navigate due to the toxins locked within the very source of their sustenance.

Sarah Hatton in front of her Bee work

Hatton's Bee piece

Hatton's Bee piece

Hatton's Bee piece

Bees from Hatton's piece

COP 19

My life has been in flux all fall, and clearly my blog has been given a small vacation. But no fear, it has not left my heart and thoughts!

This morning I just want to address a few quick things.

First of all I have been working on a Kickstarter campaign that will be up and running very shortly. I am pretty excited about it and hope all my readers check it out!

Second, mostly unrelated, it is my brother’s birthday today! (This is a cheerful prep for the third thing…)

Third, from everything that I have read and heard so far, COP 19 might just end as disappointingly as the previous 18 and others. For you who do not know, COP 19 stands for the 19^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)….A mouthful right? It is basically an intergovernmental meeting with the purpose of agreeing on actions to combat, mitigate, adapt, and face climate change. So far, they have actually done pretty much nothing to combat or even mitigate climate change, and environmentalists around the world hope each year that they will come to a binding international agreement to lower greenhouse gas emissions and hopefully avoid catastrophic climate change and tipping points that might take climate change out of our hands and beyond our ability to deal with it.

Just like the beginning of COP 18 in Doha, Qatar, this year the COP commenced as a serious Typhoon hit the low-lying nation of the Philippines. This year Super Typhoon Haiyan, or Yolanda as it is referred to in the Philippines, hit land with unmatched intensity. So far it is the second deadliest typhoon ever to hit the Philippines. In the days after the storm hit, it was postulated that it was the strongest storm ever to landfall in recorded human history.

SuperTyphoon Haiyan

What is even more serious is that many prominent and reputable political and climate professionals are linking the severity of Haiyan to climate change. What more obvious message do our “climate leaders” need to pass significant and meaningful actions on climate change? At least some of our representatives understand and are ready for action.

Survivors of Haiyan still in need

Naderev Madla Saño, more commonly known as Yeb Saño, is the Commissioner of the Philippine’s delegation to the UNFCCC. At COP 18, after his country experienced a destructive typhoon, he gave a moving speech calling for climate action and not to delay any longer. Watch his here speech, it is very moving:

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12/7/if_not_now_then_when_filipino_negotiator

In his speech he asks, “If not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where?”

Yeb Saño at COP 19

A year later his questions have not been answered. As he traveled to Warsaw, Poland for the COP 19 another devastating typhoon hit his country. At the opening of the climate negotiations Yeb addressed the parties again. This year again asking his pointed questions and pleading with the nations gathered to “end the madness”.  : http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/12/stop_this_madness_filipino_climate_chief In his speech he also vowed to fast for the remainder of the climate summit until significant action was taken to combat emissions and address climate change.

On Tuesday evening when I was reading the news and listened to Saño’s speech I was so moved by his presentation and actions that I decided to stand in solidarity with him and fast. Knowing myself, I knew that to maintain my two jobs and finish my Kickstarter I would need to eat some, but I vowed to skip a meal each day symbolically standing with him and indeed all people around the world already negatively affected by climate change. I emailed him telling him what I was doing and thanking him for his dedication and leadership. As it turns out, I was not the only one who was moved to take action in solidarity with Saño. People from around the world as well as delegates at COP 19, including US negotiator Collin Reese are also fasting in solidarity. 350.org started #WeStandWithYou petition demanding climate action, which Saño presented to the conference with over 600,000 signatures on Tuesday, November 19.

Yeb Saño and others presenting #WeStandWithYou at COP 19

People from around the world, including young activists in Warsaw are being heard and then ignored and shut out. While young activists are being shut out of the conference area, the International Coal conference also took place in Warsaw. Is this a joke? You are not the only one scratching your head at the irony. Greenpeace in their typical tactics unfurled a banner on Poland’s Ministry of Economy building where the coal conference was taking place. Not to mention their Cough for Coal lungs getting paraded around.

I could go on and on. There is a lot happening, but I wanted to address at least part of it. I am an optimist, but like many climate activists around the world, we are starting to get disgusted and fed up with the lack of action on the part of our representatives. Yes international and intergovernmental agreements are hard; we do not think they are not. But at this point, the lack of action and dedication to what they are supposedly there to do is simply disgusting. In the end, I know that we will persevere and find a way to address climate change and flourish, but my question is how much longer do we have to wait for our governments to catch up with the views of the people? How many more lives must be lost, how many more children must starve? How many more species mush be lost? How many more forests dried and burned, crops lost, communities destroyed?

If not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where?