COP28: Scouts Call On Governments and Business Leaders to Move Decisively On Climate Action

[RememberSchiff]

 

https://www.scout.org/news/calling-on-governments-businesses-climate-action

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

Thank you for posting this! So glad we're speaking up for not just decisive action now but climate justice as well. Most of us on this board benefitted from the emissions that are drowning low-lying countries. It's only fair, now that we realize what we accidentally did, to help them.

I've heard about needing to cut emissions since I was at least six and now I have a child older than that myself and we still haven't done what it's going to take, despite winters getting very tangibly warmer. The changes needed are getting more and more drastic so there's no time like the present!

[InquisitiveScouter]

What is the right amount of global heat?

What is the goal of this effort?  Is it to create some kind of climate stasis?

What is an "acceptable amount" of climate change?  (Because, it has changed across the eons...)

Whom are we to believe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6GS2HjCg-M&ab_channel=MallenBaker

https://www.lobservateur.com/2023/08/20/experts-say-climate-change-is-a-hoax/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/09/16/climate-change-hoax-or-crime-of-the-century/?sh=4e2a06df76d3

https://www.prageru.com/video/is-there-really-a-climate-emergency

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-activists-disasters-fire-storms-deaths-change-cop26-glasgow-global-warming-11635973538

I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned. - Richard Feynman

Edited December 18, 2023 by InquisitiveScouter

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

The Arctic is warming more than three times as fast as the average, meaning that I believe my senses and my memory and I believe my parents' generation when they talk about how winters were when they were children. I also trust my fellow scientists , especially to rip each other apart if someone's wrong. I'm sorry, @InquisitiveScouter, I like you a lot, but there's no web link that's going to make me doubt my own eyes or believe that an entire community of my colleagues is perpetrating a hoax.

When my mother was young, the ice in the Gulf of Bothnia froze thick enough that the Department of Transportation drew up roads on the ice. Not only has that not happened in my lifetime (eyes, and hard to make into a hoax), there was a debate in the 1990s about what to do with the ice breakers that spent all winter in harbor. (They're not exactly free to maintain, and also hard to hoax.)

When my parents were young, they could go skating on natural lake ice most of the winter. When I was young, this only happened two or three times a winter and often made the news (own eyes again and hard to hoax). These days, parents are apparently swapping tips on coverall daily laundry because the ground doesn't freeze reliably so the coveralls designed to be warm but not waterproof need washing nearly every day. 

As the vineyards in southern France are struggling with too hot summers, investors are creating new vineyards in southern Sweden where it's always been too cold for good wine grapes. (We're part of vodka Europe for a reason.) Now, it's not. 

I've asked my Tejano and Anglo Texan friends if they've seen any change in their lifetimes, and they have too. It's always been hot in South Texas, but not this hot for this long. It may be more obvious in the Arctic, but it's not just happening there.

And then there's the odds of prominent scientists not taking the chance to throw their rivals under the bus when given the opportunity.

I remember how harsh I was when my advisor asked me to help him review a paper for the first time. Truth be told, why was I harsh? Because he was too close to my own research for comfort. Did he do some stuff wrong? Yeah. But it wasn't as bad as I said. I just didn't like him on what I considered my turf. We scientists build careers by proving others wrong - there's no glory in proving someone else right. Peer review works in the long run precisely because we pick each other apart for our own gain. If there is consensus in a field, that's almost certainly right in the absence of new empirical findings the consensus can't explain. If someone could find a hole in it they would have ridden that to a professional success. If you prove everyone wrong you're a science legend.

How hot is too hot? Depends on what you think is intolerable, not just in terms of temperature but also in terms of refugees and wars over water. Nihilists could make a good case for something much higher than 1.5°C - that's a objectively subjective question. But we scouts are conservation-minded and we also have a code of ethics quite different from nihilists, so the obvious limit for us to work towards is the IPCC-recommended 1.5°C average rise.

The goal is what it's been since I was six: to preserve the status quo in terms of where people can live. Don't flood whole countries (or significant parts thereof) and don't let it get so hot/dry people have to move en masse. Prevent ecosystem collapse and/or extinctions. Surely you've heard the plight of the polar bears? It's been in the news for decades. Other cold water marine animals are showing up in distress more often due to lack of food and the ocean streams are bringing new or extremely rarely seen deep water creatures to Nordic shores due to ocean temperature shifts.

There are solid reasons why WOSM released that statement.

[Cburkhardt]

I was under the impression that these international Scouting organizations (which I know relatively little about) concentrated on assisting the Scouting organization in countries around world and did not engage in political and policy advocacy.  I took a three-minute peek at their web site and see mention of political and policy matters on which countries would take varying positions.  Does anyone know if the BSA has granted this organization authority to adopt and express policy positions on behalf of the BSA and its members?  

[SSScout]

History is personal and impersonal.  Ice ages and warm periods have been documented both within the fossil record and in recent memory. Here in Maryland USA,  I can remember winters with snow drifts taller than my dad's head. Made good tunnels for the well wrapped Cub Scout. Photoes in the magazine of storms that closed the rail road systems. The last few years have been noticably less snowy.  Last year, it hardly made sense to put the plow on the front of my son's truck. 

Do ICE contribute to the climate ?  Look to London's coal smoke clouds, Los Angeles'  smog.  Certainly. Do they contribute to the ultimate change in the climate?  Very possibly. Are they the absolute CAUSE of the climate change ?  Ummmm, ...

Electric vehicles?  Battery?  Lithium mining in the Congo? Maybe soon in Montana? 

I'm frankly more worried about the next Carrington Event.  Teach your Scouts well. Their families may need the survival skills .  

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

3 hours ago, Cburkhardt said:

Does anyone know if the BSA has granted this organization authority to adopt and express policy positions on behalf of the BSA and its members?  

Of course we have, as WOSM members with a vote in the World Scout Conference we are also an active part in shaping the goals of WOSM.

https://www.scout.org/what-we-do/world-scout-events/world-scout-conference

Plus, since the US already has a different organization in WAGGS, WOSM is the only pathway for the BSA to be part of the scouting movement.

[InquisitiveScouter]

7 minutes ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

WAGGS, WOSM is the only pathway for the BSA to be part of the scouting movement.

WAGGS and WOSM are not the only organizations in the Scouting movement.

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

25 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

WAGGS and WOSM are not the only organizations in the Scouting movement.

Well, not technically, I suppose. The BSA could become a breakaway group, in theory. But the sense in which it then would be part of a movement is debatable, and breaking a lineage comes with a lot of risk.

WAGGS and WOSM are de facto our unified face outward. They are whom for example the UN contacts when they want to consult the scouting movement. In at least some countries it's not considered real scouting, merely scout-like, if it's not the WOSM/WAGGS organisation. I certainly feel that way, even if it isn't 100% true in every circumstance, because I've never lived in a country with a strong scouting tradition in which some nonaligned scouting organisation was even remotely as well known and respected.

[Eagle1993]

8 hours ago, Cburkhardt said:

I was under the impression that these international Scouting organizations (which I know relatively little about) concentrated on assisting the Scouting organization in countries around world and did not engage in political and policy advocacy.  I took a three-minute peek at their web site and see mention of political and policy matters on which countries would take varying positions.  Does anyone know if the BSA has granted this organization authority to adopt and express policy positions on behalf of the BSA and its members?  

One could argue that reducing CO2 is very much in line with leave no trace and the outdoor code. 

[Eagle1993]

19 hours ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

When my mother was young, the ice in the Gulf of Bothnia froze thick enough that the Department of Transportation drew up roads on the ice. Not only has that not happened in my lifetime (eyes, and hard to make into a hoax), there was a debate in the 1990s about what to do with the ice breakers that spent all winter in harbor. (They're not exactly free to maintain, and also hard to hoax.)

Earlier this year I worked through Ansestery.com to research my family linage.  I was able to find family members in the USA back in the 1600s. For the most part it was interesting and in some cases I was able to find a lot of interesting details.   Unfortunately, I found a couple who had  records of owning slaves (my 9th great grandfather/mother and a 10th great grandfather).  That started a discussion with my coworkers ... what horrible thing are we doing now that our 9th great grandchildren will look back in horror (as they comb through Facebook, Twitter and Scouter.com archives).  Nearly unanimously we agreed ... the burning of hydrocarbons. 

While there is definitely debate how quickly warming will hit, it is clear our CO2 levels are already exceeding any level seen in the last 2M+ years and they continue to rise.  Listening to some climate scientists talk, it appears the real hoax is that the scientific community is understating the future impact.  Rarely do they talk beyond the year 2100 and many models assume massive reductions in C02 emissions ... and there is reason for that.  If everyone knew how bad it is going to get (based on what has already been done) governments and citizens may simply give up.  While we won't be alive to see the greatest impacts, I do think we are responsible (similar to my 9th great grandfather's ownership of slaves) and should help turn the tides. 

In terms of the WOSM taking a stand .... I'm not sure what drove them to do that.  However, I do see scouts as stewards of the environment.  Perhaps someone thought the forest fairies have concerns greater than a small piece of packaging.  I don't know if their statement will help and in general, I have not been impressed with the solutions presented (many are too expensive or require too great of change in lifestyle).  That said, I don't have an issue with scouting organizations putting pressure (within reason) on governments to protect the environment.

[yknot]

1 hour ago, Eagle1993 said:

One could argue that reducing CO2 is very much in line with leave no trace and the outdoor code. 

Kind of how I see it. Maintaining a livable planet isn't political it's survival. 

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

1 hour ago, yknot said:

2 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

One could argue that reducing CO2 is very much in line with leave no trace and the outdoor code. 

Kind of how I see it. Maintaining a livable planet isn't political it's survival. 

This is exactly how I see it.

Can't Build a Better World without maintaining the status quo close enough to pre-industrial levels for most people to continue their locales and lifestyles with modifications. 

Continuing to emit CO2 like we have been is the opposite of being conservation-minded. Doing the good turn of all good turns is cutting CO2 emissions.

Some would indeed say the wrathful earth-protecting forest fairies have awakened, and it is precisely the upsetting of the global balance that's caused this. We best pacify them quickly and thoroughly by making the needed real CO2 emissions cuts (with no funny math). 

[scoutldr]

14 hours ago, SSScout said:

I'm frankly more worried about the next Carrington Event.  Teach your Scouts well. Their families may need the survival skills .  

I am more concerned about a manmade Carrington Event, which is more likely in my opinion.  Read "One Second After" by William Forstchen.  Scouting skills may indeed beccome a matter of life and death.

[Eagle1993]

1 hour ago, scoutldr said:

I am more concerned about a manmade Carrington Event, which is more likely in my opinion.  Read "One Second After" by William Forstchen.  Scouting skills may indeed beccome a matter of life and death.

I don't disagree this is a concern.  I've read the book and highly recommend it.  It was both entertaining and informative.

 Add in AI and I think we have the trifecta of ways we can destroy ourselves and the planet.