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

[InquisitiveScouter]

On 12/17/2023 at 8:08 PM, InquisitiveScouter said:

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

LOL, who downvotes the asking of serious questions?

And that, by the way, is a rhetorical question 😜 

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

26 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

the asking of serious questions?

Are you truly confused about what to believe, then? 

I definitely can't speak for real Americans but because the mere existence of anthropogenic climate change isn't in real question in Sweden it is hard for me to imagine what kind of an intellectual-emotional journey ordinary Americans who think otherwise are on. The real Americans probably have a better idea but for me this is an element of culture shock probably compounded by that we hold STEM professionals in high cultural esteem. We see ourselves as a nation of scientists and engineers, probably not unrelated to where we are in the Inglehart-Welzel World Cultural Map. 

[qwazse]

The fundamental problem is what is observable to whom. The global temperature maps show that New England and New York have heretofore experienced the least warming. So a very influential voting block of the wealthiest country on the planet — if not in sheer resources, in media moguls — does not experience the problem the way others do (and maybe will). Other Americans see extended growing cycles as a boon for agriculture.

Americans are simply not going to perceive anthropogenic climate change the same way as others. Not for a long while. Not unless their youth gather on a blistering spit of reclaimed seabed on the Yellow Sea for a few days.

[yknot]

When I'm discussing this issue I prefer to frame it as habitat loss. Climate change can be endlessly debatable. What is a much more concrete and obvious threat is that with 8 billion of us on the planet and at least three billion more to come before things supposedly level out, we are not facing a survivable future without behavioral changes. Even if climate change didn't exist, our destruction of livable habitat around the globe is turning many species into token fringe survival groups. People crow success when there are 30,000 of a species that used to number in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. At those population levels, they are already functionally extinct. It doesn't take debatable climate change to destroy them; one bad weather event can wipe them out. Surely we can be more thoughtful than this. 

[InquisitiveScouter]

1 minute ago, yknot said:

When I'm discussing this issue I prefer to frame it as habitat loss. Climate change can be endlessly debatable. What is a much more concrete and obvious threat is that with 8 billion of us on the planet and at least three billion more to come before things supposedly level out, we are not facing a survivable future without behavioral changes. Even if climate change didn't exist, our destruction of livable habitat around the globe is turning many species into token fringe survival groups. People crow success when there are 30,000 of a species that used to number in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. At those population levels, they are already functionally extinct. It doesn't take debatable climate change to destroy them; one bad weather event can wipe them out. Surely we can be more thoughtful than this. 

With this, I am in complete agreement.  Thanks for finding some good common ground.

[RememberSchiff]

17 hours ago, yknot said:

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

Dec 19, 2023 from NBC news: I wish they had reused the name Civilian Conservation Corps and had a bipartisan Congressional committee propose it. I fear this will become another political football.

"After facing setbacks in Congress, the Biden administration has unlocked funding to launch its American Climate Corps, a new federal program that looks to employ thousands of young Americans in the clean energy, conservation and climate resilience sectors....

The new corps will be led across a partnership of federal agencies: the departments of Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, Labor and Energy, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and AmeriCorps. ...

According to the White House, nearly 50,000 people from every state and territory, including Puerto Rico, have signed up to learn more about joining the ACC since it was first announced, and a portal to apply will be launched next spring....

Five states — California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan and Washington*— have already launched climate corps programs, and the federal program will lean on them as implementing partners."

More at source:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/white-house-new-steps-american-climate-corps-young-jobs-rcna130254

*Note existing state climate programs:

California Climate Action Corps - "The impacts to our environment and health are worsening as we experience longer and more frequent droughts, devastating wildfires, and more. Each of us has a role to play. You can take meaningful action today to help communities across our state."

https://www.californiavolunteers.ca.gov/climateactioncorps/

Colorado Climate Corps

https://servecolorado.colorado.gov/colorado-climate-corps

Maine Climate Corps - "The Maine Climate Corps is a strategy to meet the ambitious goals in Maine Won't Wait (Maine's Climate Plan). Volunteering and service is a defining characteristic of Maine communities, and climate action to date has been championed by countless volunteers. "

https://volunteermaine.gov/serve-in-maine/climate-corps

https://www.maine.gov/climateplan/

Michigan Healthy Climate Corps

https://www.mihealthyclimatecorps.org/

Washington Climate Core Network

https://servewashington.wa.gov/programs/washington-climate-corps-network

Edited December 19, 2023 by RememberSchiff
add state climatre programs

[skeptic]

This concept being a major piece of the Scouts BSA program is, or should be, a given.  BSA was integral from the start of the the Conservation awareness in the early teens.  Its primary U.S. founders were all outdoor and nature supporters, though some had odd ideas in relation to today.  Seton particularly was a proponent of much of the modern leanings, and I suspect if he were alive today would be on the more radical side of the movements.  And even Roosevelt, it seems to me, had a direction change in his approach to nature and the natural resources.  Burroughs and Hornaday also supported BSA early on.  So, from my perspective, this is basic to our returning, with modern knowledge and options, to real conservatorship and support of the natural world, without which we will sooner disappear as a species.

 

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

I see us scouts as upholders of what's left of the old ways and part of the conscious movement to bring them with us into the future. We are not separate from nature, and nature is not separate from us. It is most unwise to forget this inherited wisdom from our ancestors. 

Poetically speaking, we are tenders of the relationships of our societies to the land spirits. We visit, connect, and return to protect. Or, at least, we should.

To save the polar bears, we need to restore their habitat - the sea ice. They are dependent on the sea ice for hunting their food - no sea ice, no polar bear food. Many other arctic animals are struggling to adjust, but none as hard as the polar bear because restoring that ice is... Challenging. I won't spell it out but we all know the only way to make more ice.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146023/polar-bears-struggle-as-sea-ice-declines

I'll also note there are only an estimated 450 Arctic foxes left, meaning that there are way more pieces of outdoor clothing and gear with logos of arctic foxes than actual arctic foxes. But there are more things we can do to help them with the increased encroachment from the red fox into their habitats at least.

https://www.naturskyddsforeningen.se/artiklar/lar-dig-mer-om-fjallraven/

[Tron]

If the whole world took this climate change CO2 thing seriously there would be a per capita restriction and not random made up caps and balances. This is all about control. 

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

Who's going to enforce those per capita limits and how?

I have heard many people suggest that in conversation.

[yknot]

3 hours ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

To save the polar bears, we need to restore their habitat - the sea ice. They are dependent on the sea ice for hunting their food - no sea ice, no polar bear food. Many other arctic animals are struggling to adjust, but none as hard as the polar bear because restoring that ice is... Challenging. I won't spell it out but we all know the only way to make more ice.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146023/polar-bears-struggle-as-sea-ice-declines

I'll also note there are only an estimated 450 Arctic foxes left, meaning that there are way more pieces of outdoor clothing and gear with logos of arctic foxes than actual arctic foxes. But there are more things we can do to help them with the increased encroachment from the red fox into their habitats at least.

https://www.naturskyddsforeningen.se/artiklar/lar-dig-mer-om-fjallraven/

 

I think the arctic fox numbers you cite are for parts of Scandinavia where they are doing poorly. Elsewhere they are doing OK. My oldest son went to Svalbard on spring break hoping to see polar bear among other things, which supposedly outnumber the human population there, and saw not a one although conditions were not optimal -- near whiteout most of the time. 

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

1 hour ago, yknot said:

I think the arctic fox numbers you cite are for parts of Scandinavia where they are doing poorly. Elsewhere they are doing OK.

You're right! If I search in Swedish I get critically endangered, if I search in English I get least concern even from the same parent organization like WWF. Both sources do specify for what range, but neither mention that the situation is rather different in and out of the Nordic arctic.

So, if the current efforts to save our arctic foxes take a turn for the worse, there's somewhere else you could try to reintroduce them from. Wonderful that there's a plan B.

[qwazse]

On 12/18/2023 at 11:52 AM, Cburkhardt said:

...  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?  

On 12/18/2023 at 3:21 PM, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

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. …

It is worth noting that one of the consequences of BSA’s shrinking membership — while other countries’ membership grows — is reduced input in WOSM.

One will also find that scouting education will be framed in terms of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as opposed to the individualistic tone of the Outdoor Code and Leave no Trace.

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

Worth noting in what way? Not sure I understand what you're pointing to.

[OaklandAndy]

11 hours ago, qwazse said:

t is worth noting that one of the consequences of BSA’s shrinking membership — while other countries’ membership grows — is reduced input in WOSM.

Our Pack is actually starting this at the beginning of 2024. I didn't even know about it until I was doing some research on different awards for our scouts. I doubt the councils even know much about it either. I'm hoping we can bring more awareness to it and other units will participate.