We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, May 6, 2016

The Fort McMurray Disaster: Getting Beyond “Is It Climate Change?”

Click here to access article by Bob Henson and Jeff Masters from Weather Underground.

 
...even the most elaborate, carefully conducted attribution studies (research designed to show how and when climate change has made a particular event more likely) may not always give the conclusive results people crave when it comes to specific fires and floods--although such work can say quite a bit about long-term trends.