The
Carbonics Anonymous 12-step programme is about coping with the knowledge that burning fossil fuels causes irreparable harm to our planetary life support systems, while at the same time being habituated ("addicted" according President George Bush Jnr) to ways of living which totally depend on doing just that.
Step 1 and
Step 2 "framed" the problem, now we're starting to look at the first practical action. Just who are our fellow men and women who have struggled with the same problem?
My first answer are the climate scientists, who have been obsessing over this issue since at least the 1960s and even earlier. All of my blogs in
January,
February and
March were posted while working through Exeter University's excellent online "Climate Change" course. This
brilliant TED talk by Gavin Schmidt is a good summary, describing how computer modelling allows climate scientists to predict "what if?" scenarios with increasing degrees of confidence.
But scientists have the comfort of knowing they're contributing what they do best: working on theories and mathematics until they match observations. Hotter droughts? Higher sea levels? Worse flooding? Stronger hurricanes? Ocean acidification? Yep - they all match scientists' assertions that climate change is real and happening now, and moreover, if we don't act things will get much worse.
They do a fantastic and essential job, but scientists don't seem to realise that addicts know all about living dangerously. Two recent and strongly worded reports (
IPCC Working Group 3,
US National Climate Assessment, have produced little more than
a collective yawn.
Who then to turn to? Who are the people looking squarely at the overwhelming scientific consensus, while working resolutely towards solutions?
Here is a tiny list of such organisations, groups and people I've encountered. It doesn't seem to matter who you start with, they're all interconnected and any one leads sooner or later to others, according to your curiosity:
Transition Network -
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/ - communities, books, films, workshops
Centre for Alternative Technology -
http://www.cat.org.uk/ - zero carbon Britain
Friends of the Earth -
http://www.foe.co.uk/
Greenpeace -
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/ - campaigns
Quakers -
http://quaker.org.uk/minute-36
Charles Eisenstein -
http://charleseisenstein.net/ - books & talks
Joanna Macey -
http://www.joannamacy.net/ - workshops
End Ecocide -
http://www.endecocide.eu/ - law to end ecocide
350 Degrees -
http://350.org - divesting from fossil fuel industries
(There are many, many more)
Once I started looking, doors opened and I found my local Transition in Kings (TiK) group -
http://www.transitioninkings.org - then I got involved in our local renewable energy co-op
http://www.guceltd.org and now my world of fellow "Carbonics" just goes on expanding.
Learning by doing
