By Harlin/Hayley
Breathe in.
The Earth is now 10% hotter than it was 200 years ago.
Breathe out.
Imagine if your body warmed to be 10% hotter than its average temperature of 98.6°F? What would that feel like? Which part of your body would be damaged first? Do you think you could survive such a thing?
Breathe in.
The average global temperature before the industrial era was 13.7°C. We have now breached a 1.5°C increase in temperature. That is a 10.95% increase. This has really happened. We are there.[1]
Breathe out.
The ocean is now 25% more acidic than it was before industrialization, and that number is rapidly increasing…
Breathe in.
As the ocean grows more acidic, saltwater lifeforms begin to suffer. Those with calcium carbonate shells are especially suffering, including corals, oysters, clams, scallops, mussels, and sea urchins.
Breathe out.
The thing causing the ocean to acidify is that CO2 is falling into it. Around 20%-30% of the carbon from burning fossil fuels is absorbed into the ocean, raising the ocean’s pH levels.
Breathe in.
Notice your body as you interact with this information. Do you feel tension anywhere? Try noticing the tension. Try staying with it.
Breathe out.
Do you remember how back in the 1990s, if you went for a long car ride, your windshield would get covered in insects? Have you noticed how that doesn’t happen anymore? Have you wondered why?
Breathe in.
Scientists call it ‘The Insect Apocalypse.’ Around 70% of all insects on this planet have died off in the last 50 years. Our planet has lost 70% of its insect biomass.
Breathe in.
The Earth is still losing between 10-20% of its insect biomass each decade. Birds and rodents depend on insects for food. The food chain is already being impacted…
Breathe out.
Resist the urge to assign blame for all this. Let’s see if we can just stay focused on the harm for now.
Breathe in.
When soil is healthy, it is able to absorb CO2 and can also be used to grow food. But when soil is improperly cared for, it begins to degrade and these qualities go away.
Breathe out.
According to the World Atlas of Desertification, 75% of the Earth’s soil is already degraded. And if current trends continue, this will rise to 90% by 2050. This will impact all life on Earth.
Breathe in.
We have to see it to heal it. The greatest danger right now is to look away.
Breathe out.
Should we talk about what is happening to wildlife populations, and how they have changed since the 1970s?
Breathe in.
The Living Planet Index (LPI) tracks changes in the population of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish that are being monitored by scientists worldwide. The LPI shows an average decline of 73% in population size of all monitored wildlife since the 1970s.
Breathe out.
Are you still with me?
Breathe in.
You may be trying to blame all humans for this. There’s a reason for that. You have been deceived.
Breathe out.
Starting in the 1950s, fossil fuel investors learned their product was warming the planet. Rather than warning the public, they began to develop a strategy to protect their profit margins…
Breathe in.
So beginning in the 1950s, polluting industry leaders, led by fossil fuel tycoons, began to fund a massive misinformation campaign that aimed to blame human population numbers on environmental harm.[2] There is no evidence to back up the idea that human population size is the cause of pollution. By tricking people into blaming human population numbers as a scapegoat, industries could avoid regulation and continue their polluting activities unchecked.
Breathe out.
Did you know that emissions continued to accelerate during the pandemic? Most people seem to think that emissions went down, but they didn’t. We can see this if we look at the NOAA atmospheric CO2 data.[3] A whole lot of people died, but emissions only accelerated. Thanks to what Naomi Klein calls “disaster capitalism,” whenever disasters occur, emissions and pollution accelerate because capitalists are able to get away with more when the good people are distracted taking care of each other. Emissions went up during the pandemic, and that is why.
Breathe in.
Just 180 entities account for nearly 70% of all CO2 emissions since 1850.[4]
Breathe out.[5]Are you still with me?Breathe in.What do you feel right now? Stay with it.Breathe out.
[1] I must credit eco-theorist Tobias Menely for sharing the communication technique of using percentages of change rather than raw temperature numbers. Earth’s average global temperature before industrialization was just 13.7°C. A temperature change of 1.5°C is actually quite a lot. Each decimal point that we add is actually quite a big deal. It is absurd we aren’t tracking these things more closely.
[2] For real time monitoring of atmospheric concentrations of CO2 by NOAA, check out: gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/. It is absurd that newspapers aren’t printing daily CO2 numbers. These numbers are far more important than the stock ticker numbers they so eagerly waste ink on every day.
[3] To explore how industrial actors worked to spread the myth that human population numbers are the cause of environmental problems from the 1950s-70s, check out the work of historian Emily Klancher Merchant. Here’s her website with a bunch of links to her writings:emilyklancher.com/research
[4] Want to learn exactly which companies are the most responsible for historical CO2 emissions up to this moment? Check out the Carbon Majors Dataset at: CarbonMajors.org.
[5] This text draws creative inspiration from the eco-awareness somatic workshops led by Jote Lamar in the San Francisco East Bay in the early 2010s.