Why The World Needs Green Seniors
Fireside chats don’t happen much these days, certainly not in the industrial world where heating is more likely to come from a radiator or an oil burner. There’s nothing quite like the heat that comes in random pulses from the flames rolling across a log or two in an open hearth, while outside the snow and hail play havoc with the power lines. Come to think of it, the snow doesn’t stay around so long these days either.
Like preserves or cakes, our entertainment and information are so much more likely to be shop bought and mass produced than made by our own hands nowadays. As billions of people take in pictures from their TV screens, accompanied by countless messages from “our sponsor”, fewer people talk, fewer people understand each other. We are losing contact with ourselves and those around us – and the consequences are dire. The sponsors who fill our front rooms with messages are selling us dreams that fill our lives for a brief instant – a new car, a holiday, a stylish set of patio furniture, a 16oz steak at a fancy restaurant – and then they are gone, just like the snow that’s melting before it reaches the ground.
Green Seniors (www.greenseniors.org) was born on a cold day; 1 December 2006, to be precise. ‘Cold day’ may not be completely accurate; let us just say that in the places where Green Seniors was born - the USA and UK – it was cold. In other parts of the world it wasn’t so cold: Australia, Puerto Rico and Ethiopia, and it’s to these places that we need to travel first.
Green Seniors Around The World
Australia is the home of Grey Power Community, a sub-division of Greenpeace Australia, but very much an organisation in its own right. Grey Power concentrates on energy related emissions, a subject that is of huge importance in a country like Australia that generates a massive 80% of its electricity using coal. This compares to the USA with about 50% truly dirty electricity. As with Green Seniors, Grey Power has no affiliations or financing from sources that could compromise its views or effectiveness. When we came across Grey Power we were very happy to know that the Green Seniors Movement was already in operation.
We had a surprise contact from Puerto Rico in March 2007. A lady called Nelly, who provides exercise classes for seniors, wanted some “I’m A Green Senior” buttons to give out to her class, and also for a stall she was running at Puerto Rico’s annual Day Of The Planet. We duly dispatched a pack of buttons and, as far as we know, Nelly is still spreading the word.
With great enthusiasm, Zufan from Ethiopia contacted us in May, asking what he could do to help. Ethiopia is, in terms of financial wealth, a very poor nation, but clearly lacks nothing in terms of the human spirit and the desire to make things better. We have done our best to help Zufan, and he has assured us that Green Seniors will be known in the Horn of Africa.
The odd thing about running something like www.greenseniors.org is that we rarely get to know exactly what’s going on around the world unless someone tells us about it. We know, for instance, that there are many seniors in the USA educating others about climate change and working to “green” their lifestyles, their communities, and beyond. For example, retired ecologist Erv Klaas - whom we featured as a “Green Hero” - helped a midwestern town save a billion gallon reservoir for its emergency water supply.
In the UK, senior activist Irene Willis – another “Green Hero” – is getting arrested in the name of world peace and environmental stability. It really does take all sorts to change the world for the better, and we raise our hats to all seniors, whatever their style of campaigning, who are doing something to ensure the future world is habitable. The more we know about their efforts, the more we can publicise them, to the benefit of both the Green Seniors Movement and the planet.
Green Seniors : The Web Site, The Organisation And The Movement
At this point, it’s worth making the distinction between Green Seniors, the web site cum organisation, and the Green Seniors Movement. It was the Green Seniors web site that officially launched in 2006, along with the organisation that is headed up by Joyce Emery from the USA and Keith Farnish from the UK. That is just one, albeit – we like to think – vital, part of the jigsaw. The Green Seniors Movement, on the other hand, is something that we are trying to ensure becomes a truly global movement for positive change. One reason Green Seniors, the organisation, does not have formal members, is that we believe seniors should chose their affiliations according to their beliefs and circumstances. We have very limited resources but are able to maintain the site according to its purpose. The Green Seniors web site is a ‘stopping off point’ for people of all ages to “find information, join networks, build communities, make a difference.”
In July 2007 the Green Seniors Movement received a welcome boost by gaining the formal endorsement of the United Nations Environmental Programme. This provides credibility for both the movement and the organisation at a time when urgent environmental action is needed.
Urgent Action Is Needed
Climate change is something that has to be acted on immediately and dramatically. It is necessary to recognize when businesses embrace “green” ideas superficially, using the public’s concern for climate change only to increase profits. Some organisations are actively seeking to derail climate change prevention efforts.
As this is being written, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is predicting that “at best” the global temperature will rise by 1.8°C (3.25°F) by the end of the 21st Century. At worst, this rise could be around 6°C. The way the industrial, consumer world is moving, we are looking at a minimum 4°C rise. Many scientists estimate that serious feedback effects, such as the world’s soils ‘exhaling’ carbon dioxide rather than absorbing it, could begin at only a 2°C rise - a mere 40-50 years from now.
The effects of such temperature rises are likely to spell the end for 30% of the species on Earth and most of the world’s rainforests. Climate projections are especially severe for areas of the globe that rely on snow meltwaters to feed aqueducts and rivers used for irrigating farmland and for sustaining towns and cities. Then there is the matter of sea level rise and its impact upon coastal city infrastructure, beaches, coral reefs, estuaries, and upon all nations with large portions of the population dwelling at barely above sea level.
A Solution Is Possible If We Act Now
So are we doomed to a breakdown of our global life support systems? The IPCC models assume that the way we live does not fundamentally change, i.e. we continue to have an economy that thrives on consumption and a world populace that aspires to the Western lifestyle. If we are to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, then we must make huge changes to the way humans live – at home, at work, in the food we eat, in the way we travel and, most importantly, the value we place on the natural environment.
To avoid the most serious feedback effects, the science shows we need nothing less than an 80% cut in global carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. Most of the carbon emitted when today’s seniors were children is still in the atmosphere, so even today’s very oldest citizens have some direct responsibility for climate change. In addition, seniors in the USA are becoming more affluent, and with affluence comes emissions. It is no coincidence that the very richest countries in the world are also the biggest producers of greenhouse gases.
But there is a way. With a mass movement of people who really care what will happen to the planet and, hence, to their descendants, it is possible to create great change of the kind that is needed. There was a time when we cycled to the park or the river, rather than fly across the world. There was a time when we walked to the local shop to buy just what we needed, rather than drive to the shopping mall to buy what we don’t. There was a time when we wore sweaters instead of turning the heating up, and closed the shutters rather than switching on the air conditioning.
Seniors have a collective memory of earlier times when far less energy was consumed, and yet life was good. These life experiences help seniors lead the way now in embracing the changes required for the next generations. Seniors care about their legacy, and they have endured too much and labored too hard to allow it to be derailed now by global warming.
There was a time when we talked, listened and learnt from each other, with the snow and hail beating against the windowpane as we warm ourselves in front of the fire. We need that time again.
This is the full version of the article originally submitted to AARP for their December Bulletin.
You can download a Microsoft Word version of the article above by clicking on This Link.
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