Year 1, Month 1, Day 11: To The Cambridge Chronicle

It’s just after midnight, and I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. So I composed this one before going to bed. I think I’ll try and make this a part of the routine as my schedule starts to get crazier in the coming weeks.

How easy it is for us human beings to fool ourselves! Because it’s cold in Massachusetts, we conclude that “there’s no such thing as global warming.” Tell that to residents of Bulgaria, and to Puerto Ricans, who’ve both had record high temperatures. Tell that to people in Greenland, where the thermometer is hovering at around fifty degrees Farenheit. In January. The fact that large parts of the Northern United States are experiencing freezing temperatures only serves to demonstrate that local weather isn’t the same as climate. But we, steeped in American exceptionalism, cannot imagine that the story of the Earth’s climate isn’t a Story About Us. And, steeped in the false notion that an economic model based on unending consumption is somehow good for the world, we cannot imagine making the sacrifices necessary for the survival of the planet.

It is a tragedy in the making, aided and abetted by a thrill-seeking, ignorance-abetting media more focused on celebrity scandals and “he-said, she-said” stenography than the urgent planetary need for accurate information and analysis. It is a tragedy of selfishness and shortsightedness, enabled by politicians who play rhetorical games with one another while gigatons of Arctic methane begin to thaw under the tundra. Yes, it’s cold in Massachusetts. But it’s getting hotter and hotter here on Earth.

Warren Senders

Have you written a letter today?

Year 1, Month 1, Day 8: To the Local Murdoch

The Boston Herald is the paper equivalent of FOX News here in Boston. They’re owned by Murdoch, and they’re about as likely to print my letter as they are to endorse a Bernie Sanders presidential campaign (on the other hand, they’ve done some good arts coverage in the past; I have some nice clips from the Herald back in the day). I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired this morning, but I thought a few 9/11 references might up the sensationalist content of my letter. Perhaps that will, er, stimulate them.

The evidence indicating human causes for global climate change is overwhelming and points to a rapidly approaching crisis of unimaginable magnitude. Our media choose instead to ignore or ridicule mountains of scientific research, instead highlighting one or two oil-funded denialists who argue to the contrary. Let’s put it in perspective. Remember the build-up to the Iraq war? Our print and broadcast media became cheerleaders for the Bush administration’s preemptive attack on another nation, an attack predicated on the flimsiest of evidence. If the evidence for Iraqi WMDs had been as strong as the evidence for human causes of climate change, we would have found piles of nuclear warheads on every street corner.

Or, to put it another way: the media’s dismissal of decades of validated research is painfully reminiscent of a chief executive who received a Presidential Daily Briefing in August of 2001 headed “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in US”; a president who responded to urgent warnings from intelligence officials by saying, “There, now you’ve covered your ass.” The eagerness of our news establishment to downplay the most urgent threat our civilization has ever faced in favor of celebrity scandals and fashionable irrelevancies is just another version of “Now watch this drive.”

Warren Senders

Go ahead. Write to your local Murdoch fishwrap. Use small words.

letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com

Year 1, Month 1, Day 7: Boston Globe

Sent this morning to the Boston Globe. In keeping with the doctrine of recycling, if they don’t print it, I’ll send it to some other papers in the next couple of days.

The writer Brian Aldiss defines civilization as “the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta.” Our civilization has done a wonderful job of distancing us from our waste in general, as witness the fact that while the world’s largest landfill contains millions of tons of plastic trash and occupies an area as large or larger as the continental United States, it’s smack in the middle of the Pacific ocean, out of sight and out of mind. Similarly, our emissions of carbon dioxide (even as they reside in our atmosphere, all around us) are kept at a great mental distance; it’s much easier to think about Tiger Woods’ marital problems and the latest episode of a popular television program than it is to confront our own waste and wastefulness. Emerson said that the human race will “eventually die of civilization.” The ever-increasing likelihood of catastrophic global climate change makes the Sage of Concord’s words ring all too true.

A properly functioning print and broadcast media would be educating the public about these issues, making a clear distinction between scientific truth and irresponsible denialism. Instead we are treated to a never-ending parade of distractions and irrelevancies, while the world’s ecosystems crumble and the possibility of a happy and sustainable life for future generations grows ever dimmer.

Warren Senders

Have you written to your local branch of the Corporate Media today? You should. It will give you a few fleeting seconds of satisfaction.