Normalgeddon: Your Landing Page About Having Fun & The Worst Case Scenario Of The Climate Crisis

Posted by David W. Oaks on December 13, 2015 in Activism, Alternatives, Environment, Normalgeddon, Peer Support | 1 comment

This is a giant hole — actually called End Of The World — in Siberian permafrost that illustrates feedback loops involving methane release.

Update 12/2015:

Several of us have visited Ninkasi Brewery because their Chief Financial Officer is the chair-elect for the local Chamber of Commerce. You may see the results and photo here.  

Updated 9/21/2015:

If you live in or near Eugene, Oregon, there is a very easy way to look on the web and see if your favorite business belongs to the local Chamber. If so, please ask the business owner to contact the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce and request that our local Chamber acknowledge that global warming exists, is caused by humans, and the US Chamber in Washington, DC, does not speak for us!

Welcome to Normalgeddon!

I invented the word Normalgeddon to describe the risk of ending not only civilization as we know it, but ending life on Earth over the next few decades. Yes, I realize that things like sea-level rise and hurricanes are more certain, even currently-existing, outcomes of global warming. But there is an uncertain and real chance of “run-away” global warming, when positive feedback loops bring our chaotic climate system into uncharted waters. In this case, a tipping point of no-return could be reached and a very different and unlivable environment unfolds. I call this phenomenon Normalgeddon because it is our collective complacency and adherence to so-called Normality that are driving us toward catastrophe.

For example, one of the most famous scientists, Stephen Hawking, said: “I am afraid the atmosphere might get hotter and hotter until it will be like Venus with boiling sulfuric acid.”

I like to think that by acting urgently and based on our highest principles, we have a chance of turning things around.

Here is a brief list of resources both on this blog and in the web about preventing Normalgeddon.

Links to my blog entries:

1. My latest blog entry about the Chamber of Commerce and Global Warming:

April 2015 Update: We visit the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, and now you can see both a four-minute and 44-minute videos by David Zupan and Jana Thrift about our protest here:

http://www.davidwoaks.com/eugene-area-chamber-of-silence-about-climate-crisis

We visited Ninkasi Brewery, which is a member of the Eugene Area Chamber of commerce. Their Chief Financial Officer is the chair-elect. So far they have not responded to our concerns. You may see our public note and photo of our visit here:

Here is a previous post about the campaign to encourage our local chamber in Eugene to speak out about global warming:

http://www.davidwoaks.com/global-warming-normalgeddon-mental-wellness-chamber-of-commerce

Here is an earlier post about the local chamber:

http://www.davidwoaks.com/eugene-area-chamber-global-warming

2. Other blog entries about this topic, please read them one after another here:

http://www.davidwoaks.com/category/normalgeddon

Here are a few other resources about runaway global warming risk:

1. A google search for videos on this topic that you should check out:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=runaway+climate+change&tbm=vid

2. If you are ready to hear from someone who is respected but apparently is a bit more pessimistic than me about the future, please read about Guy R. McPherson, author of the book Going Dark, here:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=mcpherson+going+dark

Thriving despite the risk of Normalgeddon:

Readers of my blog know that I am informed as an amateur about the science of emergence, or as I like to call it “the butterfly effect.” In other words, if we all act from our best values of unity, activism, and love of Earth, then we may have unexpected great results — a Climate Miracle! So remember that hope involves taking action without knowing exactly what the outcome may be.

Everyone ought to be familiar with this revolution in the sciences sometimes called systems sciences or complexity theory. You may read about this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Books such as Web of Life, by physicist Fritjof Capra, apply this type of thinking to living systems.

By coincidence, earlier this year I spent a whole session with my great counselor, psychologist John Bundy, about this very topic because I found I was losing a lot of sleep as I did research. After all, this may be the end of human life. I like to think that we all act together and save life. But I know this topic can be very upsetting.

May I suggest that we use the power of peer support, and I plan to do a lot of protesting and speaking out about this topic. I sure hope we work together now about this, no matter what the results, and hopefully we will celebrate later on!

There is an ancient Persian saying: No one is tired on Victory Day!

This page will change as more material arrives. Speaking of which, the great leader for connecting our movement to his career of mental health counselor, Ron Unger, sent me the following:

Ron provided one of the main links about a worst case scenario that one of the main climate crisis scientists brought up in 2013:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2311699/Could-Earth-barren-Venus-Climate-change-scientist-warns-planet-ice-free-human-free.html#ixzz3StLDobcd

Ron said, “Nice expression – a ‘human free’ planet.  It sounds kind of pristine!”