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Elna Otter The Climate Project

Al Gore's ground breaking film - An Inconvenient Truth - has not only made headlines at the box office but also won this year's Academy Award for documentary feature.  More importantly, it has also become the spearhead of a vanguard of books, films, lectures, articles, discussions, presentations, town meetings and debates serving to educate the public and government officials of the imminent, in fact, clear and present danger of climate change.

Elna Otter is a resident of the greater Tucson area and a long time activist on a range of issues.  See The Sanctuary Experience interview on Central American refugees with her coauthor Dorothy Pine for an example.  Her interest in climate change goes back to the early 90s when she travelled extensively throughout the world, heard other's observations and personally witnessed the effects of climate change.

She has recently attended, and received training at, Al Gore's Nashville based The Climate Project - supported by the proceeds of An Inconvenient Truth among other sources - and is participating in the project's ongoing effort to spread the word - and the science.  The program provides slides and data that were used in the making of An Inconvenient Truth along with additional materials that Edna has obtained from various sources to expand and localize the presentation in the southwest.  These presentations are being made at no charge across the country and around the world by over 1,000 people that have completed the training.  As new studies are introduced and new data becomes available, that new corroborative information is added to the presentations to keep them as current as possible.

The reality of climate change is undeniable, even by the Bush adminnistration.  The degree and rapidity with which it increases is still uncertain but the fact of it's presence and the self evident seriousness of its impact is unarguable.  Even those most insistent on it's reality in recent years are shocked at the rapidity with which it is progressing.  The opening of the Northwest Passage to shipping and the expected loss of ALL arctic polar ice during the summer within a few years is only one sobering confirmation.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will present the final version of it's current report in November 2007.  The IPCC has arrived at it's dour conclusions by a process of consensus that many scientists, researchers and climate activists say is considerably "toned down" in order to gather the largest base of support among the 70 nations that are contributing to the effort.  Even so, it clearly presents the need for immediate and intensive new policies to mitigate it's effects if not reverse or even slow it's onset.

The Bush administration - which continues to refuse to ratify the Kyoto Protocols - is allied with the world's most profligate poluters, wasteful energy users, and corporate profiteers.  They continue in their denials of the human / corporate contribution to the reality (they create their own, remember?) of climate change's effects and causes in order to squeeze still more profits from a system that is now becoming more efficient at destroying itself than anything else.  

Meanwhile, those at the leading edge of research continue to raise the alarm of tipping points - those advances in the trend that can cause sudden, catastrophic, irreversible changes with horrifying effects on a whole range of ecological balances affecting weather, sea level, species extinction, agriculture, and the very air we breath.

It is worthy of note that not only are Al Gore and the IPCC cowinners of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, but the winner in 2004, Wangari Muta Maathai of Kenya, also focused on sustainable development and local activism.  Other recent Nobel laureates promote similar values and methods.

Climate Change is a present reality.  The only question is how quickly it is advancing, with what degree of consequence and how will we respond.  We can reduce its impact and respond to its effects, but humanity stands at the brink and has very little time to confront a cataclysm to which we are contributing.  

A current film on the subject, What A Way To Go, uses a wry quote by Woody Allen to illustrate our condition...

One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness.
The other to total extinction.
Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

Click here to watch or here to listen to the program.

Fred Pearce
With Speed
and Violence: 
Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change

George Monbiot  Matthew Prescott
Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning

Tim Flannery
The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and what it Means for Life on Earth

Mike Tidwell
The Ravaging Tide