Mitigating Climate Disaster Needs Madison Avenue, Now!

Despite wildfires, droughts, floods, hurricanes, and other disasters getting more deadly and killing increasing numbers of people every year, we keep making the climate worse instead of better. How do we stop that? What can we do? We need the almighty dollar to talk and we need Madison Avenue to tell it what to say.

If slick, persuasive, Madison-Avenue-style advertising tells homeowners and building owners that roofs with solar panels provide cheaper, more reliable energy that, incidentally, prevents climate-caused tragedy, Americans will install solar. If Madison Avenue advertises to food buyers and food producers that food produced with weathering fertilizer is healthier and cheaper than food grown with old-style fertilizer and that, incidentally, it might save life on Earth, then buyers will buy such foods and food producers will produce them. (Weathering fertilizer, which may come from crushed calcium-based rock, draws carbon down from the air, producing calcium carbonate materials that stay out of the atmosphere, decreasing the amount of heating of the planet.) There are many other things Madison Avenue can do, for example advertising for heat pumps, electric cars, electric stoves, ovens, water heaters, and food from farmers who practice regenerative agriculture, as well as advertising for more energy efficient windows, doors, and outer-wall insulation. There are too many such things to mention, but you get the idea. Madison Avenue is the dollar whisperer. With Government taking very little action to help save life on Earth. Madison Avenue should be whispering in the dollar’s ear to save us from climate disaster. Think how quickly we switched to cell phones and flat-panel televisions and monitors. When the all-mighty dollar talks, people do what it tells them, and they do it quickly. We need that now. Madison Avenue, start whispering in the dollar’s ear.

Yes, I know Madison Avenue as the Almighty Dollar whisperer is a cute metaphor that might make some sense, but how does this metaphor achieve results? As someone involved with climate change, I am a member of many climate organizations. These include 350.org, Climate Reality Project, Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), Renewable Energy World, Climate Change Network, The Nature Conservancy, Earth Justice, and many, many more. All these groups do something to help the climate but what is the sum of the results from these groups? The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere keeps increasing and the world gets hotter. As a contributor to them, it seems to me the major work of these groups is raising money from small donors like me. I propose they should spend their money on advertising to the consumer.

I receive many awful advertisements (not Madison-Avenue quality) from companies that install solar panels, install heat pumps, sell electric stoves, and electric water heaters, etc. Personally, I ignore most of these ads because they are from companies that profit from whatever they can sell me. I don't trust them. However, if The Climate Reality Project, 350.org, or other major climate organizations sent me Madison-Avenue-quality documents explaining to me which solar roof companies are best, what to buy from them, how much it costs, and how it benefits me and the planet, I’d believe them and spend my money. I am not alone. Most consumers feel the same way I do. CCL and most of these organizations have been trying to lobby Congress and the White House for years, to no avail. With an obstructionist legislative branch of Government and a denier majority on the Supreme Court, continuing what they have been doing makes no sense. Instead, we should use Madison Avenue to change the buying habits of consumers to purchase top-quality products they need that, incidentally, help the planet. Today, that is the best way to mitigate climate disaster.

Who am I? Why am I writing this? I have recently finished a powerful global warming novel as part of my personal war against the climate crisis. Please help. Friend me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter, and connect with me on LinkedIn. I need a great literary agent and a great publishing company to market the novel and print a lot of copies. Agents and publishers look at an author's social media numbers as a sign of potential buyers. So please Friend me, Follow me, and Connect with me, and comment on what I post. Consider it as doing a small part in saving humanity from the ravages of global warming. Thanks.

Shawn Oueinsteen      
www.shawnoueinsteen.com
mourningdovenovel.blogspot.com 

Climate Apocalypse? Are We Doomed? No! Follow John Paul Jones!

Wildfires, droughts, floods, drenching hurricanes, and killer tornadoes are increasingly deadly. At least one foot of sea-level rise cannot be stopped; the oceans are too big. In the climate-metaphor movie, Don’t Look Up, we all die. Climate change is getting worse and Governments throughout the world are not fixing it. There are people who say we all will go extinct, there’s not a thing we can do about it, so we shouldn’t even try. Climate scientist Michael Mann calls such people doomists. But are the doomists right? Is fighting climate change an exercise in futility? Are we fighting a battle we know we are going to lose? Is it too late? Do we give up? No!

WE HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT!

In the American Revolutionary War, a U.S. boat fought a stronger British ship of war. The American captain and his crew were outgunned. His ship was losing and appeared likely to sink. Asked if he would surrender, the captain, John Paul Jones, is famous for replying, "I have not yet begun to fight." He was a brilliant captain. His crew fought on, until an American grenade caused a gunpowder explosion on the British ship, and the British surrendered. John Paul Jones won. He is known as the father of the American Navy.

That is the attitude that will save mankind.

It is undeniable that climate disasters are getting worse and are killing people at an ever-increasing rate. But we will beat this. Even if the very, very worst happens, we will come back and win. In what is called “The Great Extinction Event” (the end-Permian), ninety percent of all life on Earth died, but it came back. If the climate apocalypse should get that bad, so there are only a few human couples left alive, we will fight and rebuild. But we will not let it get that far. Young people are urging us to begin to fight, and we will. To begin to fight, we must vote for carbon taxes. We must stop subsidizing the fossil-fuel industry and strongly subsidize sustainable industry. We most vote to fund climate-technology innovation and greenhouse-gas draw-down innovation. We must vote to change industrial farming to become regenerative farming. We must stop investing in corporations that destroy us and start investing in companies that save us. As John Paul Jones said,

WE HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT, BUT WE WILL FIGHT. AND WE WILL WIN

 

Who am I? Why am I writing this? I am a novelist, creating a powerful global warming novel as part of my personal war against the climate crisis. I need a great publishing company to market the novel and print a lot of copies. Publishers look at an author's social media numbers as a sign of potential buyers. Please help. Friend me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter, and connect with me on LinkedIn. Also, please share and comment on what I post. Consider it as doing a small part in saving humanity from the ravages of global warming. Thanks.

Shawn Oueinsteen      
www.shawnoueinsteen.com
mourningdovenovel.blogspot.com 

Oueinsteen's Ouild-Ass Guesses

Global warming has obviously started to hurt us. It is now more properly called the climate crisis. We are experiencing thousand-year storms with unheard-of floods. We have wildfires. We have droughts. We have water coming onto the roads on sunny days in South Florida.

So, with global warming actually happening, I have three questions: 1) What is the most optimistic scenario we can hope for? 2) What is the most likely scenario? 3) What is the worst we can expect?

Based on my having read more than seventy books about climate change as part of research for writing my climate novel, here are my Oueinsteen Ouild-Ass Guesses:

1. MOST OPTIMISTIC SCENARIO: We must assume United States President #46 will be extremely concerned about global warming and do everything in his power to fight against it. He also must persuade the rest of the world to do the same. This would include a large tax on carbon as it comes from the ground, with all revenue from this tax driving two major changes to our civilization: carbon-free energy generation, and regenerative agriculture to draw down and sequester carbon. The oceans already store far too much heat and will not cool off for many years. So, even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica will continue to melt and seas will continue to rise. But the rise may be kept to under three feet, and the global temperature may rise to less than 4 degrees F (2 degrees C) by 2050. If we can maintain these numbers, by 2100, we will probably lose South Florida, Norfolk, VA, several island nations, and Bangladesh, among other places, and have many millions of climate refugees. Major coastal cities will each spend billions of dollars to combat damage of sea-level rise. Terrible storms and droughts will continue for more than a century. Tens of millions may die, as a result, but most major countries will survive. Civilization will continue onward and upward. My ouild-ass guess is that there is a 20% chance of this scenario occurring in the lifetimes of children being born today.
    
   
2. MOST LIKELY SCENARIO: If President #46 and most of Congress are only somewhat concerned about glob al warming, lobbyists from the big energy companies and big agricultural companies will make certain that the change to fossil-fuel-free energy and regenerative farming happens slowly. Russia, India, and many other countries will continue to increase the amount of carbon they release into the atmosphere. As a result, temperatures will rise to well over 4 degrees F by 2050 and seas will rise by more than two feet by 2050 and more than ten feet by 2100. With the loss of mountain glaciers, many rivers will stop flowing during the dry seasons. By 2050, more than 100 million refugees will flee the coastlines and drought areas. In the United States, many of these refugees fleeing Florida and the dry Southwestern states, will move to healthy cities asking for food, water, jobs, housing, and healthcare. These refugees will have guns. Governments will not be able to help most of the refugees. There will be riots. Refugee camp sanitary conditions will be inadequate, resulting in disease. Many people will die. Throughout the world, perhaps a billion will die and many governments will fall before the world gets serious about climate change. By 2100, some Governments (probably including the U.S. Government) will survive, but most will fall and perhaps two billion will die before temperatures stop increasing. Civilization eventually will recover, but the damage will be very painful. My ouild-ass guess is that there is a 70% chance of this scenario occurring in the lifetime of children being born today.
   
   
3. MOST PESSIMISTIC SCENARIO: Global warming’s feedback systems caused by man-made global warming, will make any of man’s effort to curb warming meaningless. The amount of such feedback currently is surprising climate modelers. Feedback includes soot from wildfires darkening Greenland glaciers, causing increased melting. Another surprising feedback is the amount of methane bubbling out of the permafrost, adding to greenhouse gases and thereby adding to the warming. The most frightening potential feedback, unaccounted for in most models, is the melting of methane clathrates from the Oceans' continental shelves. Some scientists say that the amount of this methane may put carbon into the atmosphere rivaling the amount that caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago. This was the worst extinction in the history of oxygen-breathing life of Earth. More than 90% of all life died, and most of what survived did so in what has since become Antarctica. The oceans already have absorbed far too much heat. There is nothing man can do about that. Glacial melting forces hotter water to the lower reaches of the ocean. Methane can be expected to bubble out of the water. Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide (CO2). So global warming might very well be much worse than climate modelers have predicted. Also, the oceans have become more acidic (due to absorption of CO2). That can cause plankton to die, decreasing the planet’s ability to absorb carbon and release oxygen. So, not only do we have to worry about heat, we also have to worry about having enough air to breathe. Previous extinction events took thousands of years for carbon levels to rise. Many scientists believe that the speed of this rise is unprecedented, which may cause mass extinctions, even at lower levels of carbon. So, the worst-case scenario is that most or maybe even all mankind will die. If any life on Earth survives, it may be only in Antarctica and might be similar to pond scum. My ouild-ass guess is that there is a 10% chance of some form of a major extinction event happening within the lifespan of children being born today.
   

Of course, there is always the “miracle scenario.” Within the next five years, man could develop room-temperature superconducting, desktop fusion power, and/or a perfect smokestack scrubber that not only makes burning fossil fuels carbon free but also draws carbon down from the atmosphere. Or, Einstein's successor could come up with a perfect unified field theory and we will have full control of space and time. But if you believe such miracles can happen, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I could sell you.

Sorry folks, that’s the way I see global warming playing out. These are my best guesses.


I am writing a powerful global warming novel as part of my personal war against the climate crisis. Please help. Friend me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter, and connect with me on LinkedIn.  I need a great publishing company to market the novel and print a lot of copies. Publishers look at an author's social media numbers as a sign of potential buyers. So please Friend me, Follow me, and Connect with me, and comment on what I post. Consider it as doing a small part in saving humanity from the ravages of global warming. Thanks.

Shawn Oueinsteen      

http://www.shawnoueinsteen.com 

https://mourningdovenovel.blogspot.com

Greenhouse Gags

Greenhouse Gags

As global warming can have such dire consequences, we need humor to deal with it. So here are a few dumb jokes.

• What’s the next creature to go extinct? Snowmen.

• The industry of the future for the next remake of The Graduate? Air conditioning. 

• Look at the good side, Greenland’s finally going to be green. 

• The romance between the planets Mars and Venus is in trouble. Their neighbor, Earth, is getting really hot. Earth’s changing albedo is affecting Mars’s libido. Astronomers have determined that something on Mars is rising and it’s not the sea level. 

• Maybe we’ll get to see what penguins wear under their tuxedos; they’ll have to take them off in the heat.

• LSD guru Timothy Leary is smiling in his grave. Even the oceans are doing acid. 

• Calving glaciers are affecting the ocean food chain. The great white whale today is eating ice burgers. 

• To stop greenhouse gas, we need to put up a sign: no farting in the arboretum. 

• Skinny dippers can now swim in the Arctic. They call themselves polar bares. 

• There’s talk of covering the Antarctic, during the midnight-sun summer, with a new photovoltaic film to provide electricity. They’re calling that South polar solar. 

• In the Garden of Eden, Adam’s Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) car is melting. God’s replacing it with an electric vehicle (EV).

• Have you heard about the Trump-brand fortune cookie? The message always reads, “Climate change really is a Chinese hoax.”

• What wind farm sets the record for the least amount of power? The Senate Democratic Caucus.

I am writing a powerful global warming novel as part of my personal war against the climate crisis. Please help. Friend me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter, and connect with me on LinkedIn.  I need a great publishing company to market the novel and print a lot of copies. Publishers look at an author's social media numbers as a sign of potential buyers. So please Friend me, Follow me, and Connect with me, and comment on what I post. Consider it as doing a small part in saving humanity from the ravages of global warming. Thanks.

Shawn Oueinsteen      

http://www.shawnoueinsteen.com 

https://mourningdovenovel.blogspot.com

Tommy the Toddler and the Climate Crisis

Tommy the Toddler and the Climate Crisis

This is a scenario that could happen as global warming adds to the drying up of the American Southwest:

Tommy climbed the blue and red steps and sat on his ducky-head toilet-training seat. He did everything he needed to do all by himself. It was a Saturday morning. No day-care! He’d spend all day with Mommy! They would watch cartoons together. She would take him to the park. She’d be on the see-saw with him. She’d help him go down the slide. She would take him on the trolley to the grocery and she’d buy him strawberries and cherries to eat on the way home, maybe even a lollypop. 

Tommy carefully held onto the ducky-head as he climbed down the two steps. He put on his pajama bottoms and grabbed the lever to flush. It pulled down too easily and did not flush. He looked in the bowl and his poop was still there.

“Mommy! The toilet’s bwoken.” He tried not to cry. Mommy wouldn’t want him to cry.

Mommy came into the bathroom. She had been just outside the door. She said, “Let me see,” and tried flushing the toilet. When it did not flush, she raised the lid on the tank. She said, “Oh, no.”

 “I bwoke it?”

She went to the bathroom sink and tried turning on the cold water. Nothing. She tired the hot water. Again, nothing. She said, “Shit.” Then she said, “Sorry, Tommy. I’m not supposed to say that around you. But no, you didn’t break it, honey. It’s the city. I think it’s what they were talking about on the news all week.”

“The city bwoke it?” To Tommy, the city was big buildings. Could the city break things?.

Mommy lifted off the ducky head and sat on the toilet, sliding her pajama bottoms in a manner to leave nothing exposed.

Tommy asked, “Flush?”

“You’re right. It won’t, but it’s the only toilet we have.”

Mommy’s phone was ringing from the bedroom.

“Could you get that, Tommy? It’s probably Daddy.”

Tommy had just learned how to answer Mommy’s phone. Daddy’s face was on the screen. Tommy moved his finger on the green thingy over Daddy’s shirt pocket. Then he put his thumb on the speaker thingy toward the bottom left. When it changed, he said, “Hi, Daddy.”

Daddy’s voice said, “Hi, Tommy. How you doing, kid?”

“Okay, Daddy. I made a poop by myself, but the flush is bwoken.”

“That’s what I was afraid of, Tommy-boy. Put Mommy on the phone. Love you, kid.”

“Love you, Daddy.”

Tommy handed Mommy the phone. She said, “Hey, Steve,”

“What the hell are you still doing there? Didn’t you hear the evacuation notices?”

Mommy pushed a buttons on the phone and Tommy could no longer hear Daddy. 

Tommy did not understand, but Mommy said, “I thought the Corps of Engineers were fixing it. Huh? Why would the Supreme Court stop them?

“Yes, yes. That’s idiotic. When Nawra said to pick up Tommy early from day care, with her accent I couldn’t figure out why. I spent the morning at the University library. No one else was there. Last weekend, Tommy was miserable without you here. So, we needed to have fun last night. We had his favorite foods .His favorite books, games. I didn’t turn on the TV and you didn’t call. Mom didn’t call. I didn’t know calls weren’t going through.

“So what do we do? No, don’t steal a copter from your military base. Okay. Yes. Okay. You still have a hidden six-pack? You finished it? Damn you! Yes. Okay. Train, first choice. Copters at the hospital, second choice. The Parkway to Twenty-Third Street. Right on Sixteenth Avenue. Left on Birch. You sure it’s not Elm? Okay, Birch. Okay. Bright clothes. Okay. I will. Okay. Electricity too? Oh shit. Okay. I understand you’ve got to go. Okay. Thanks. Talk to you soon. Love you. Bye.”

“Let’s get you dressed, Tommy. We’ll eat breakfast. Then we’ll get out of this bwoken city.”

“Tommy started to cry. “I wanna go to the park. Playground today. No day care. You said.”

Mommy picked him up and put her cheek against his. “Please don’t cry, Tommy. I probably sound scared and you picked up on that. We’ll be okay. But you have to be a very big boy today with no crying. The city’s water supply is broken. Daddy says the electricity might break today, too. We’ll travel to your grandparents and maybe get to see Daddy. Okay? You’ll be a very good boy today?”

Tommy nodded. Mommy wiped his nose with toilet paper. She threw it in the toilet. Tommy did not understand why.

In the kitchen, Mommy said, “We really needed to go shopping. There’s just enough milk for Cheerios for you. And you have a small glass of juice. For me, It’s Cheerios with the last half can of beer.”

#

“Mommy, it’s scary.” 

“Yeah, it’s too quiet. No car noises. Not even birds. Let’s do what they did in The Wizard of Oz. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.”

Tommy joined in, “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.” Then he stopped and said, “Mommy, I’m hot.”

“Yeah, I’m hot, too. Daddy said to wear bright colors and your coat’s bright red. But you’re right. It’s hot. I’ll unzip it, but keep it on for now. We need to be seen by helicopters or airplanes. There’s a gas station up ahead with a mini mart. We’ll buy something to drink.”

As they approached the gas station, Tommy said, “Minnie Mart is bwoken, Mommy.”

“You’re right. The window’s been smashed.” They rushed toward it. “Damn! It’s been looted. Everything drinkable’s been stolen.”

“I’m thirsty, Mommy.” Tommy started to cry.

Mommy sat on a curb and put Tommy on her lap. She said, “I’m thirsty too. But it looks like the trolley’s not working, so we can’t get to a train. We’ll have to walk to the hospital. Daddy says there will be helicopters there. So we have to walk, Tommy, even if we’re both thirsty. If we see people, we can get help. If we see a window that doesn’t have bars on it, maybe we can break into a house and find melted ice from a refrigerator, or something like that. But we have to walk. So, don’t cry. Tommy.”

They walked. They found the Parkway and walked and walked.

Tommy said, “Mommy, I can’t.” He started crying.

She picked him up and tried to comfort him. When he stopped crying, she started walking again, carrying Tommy. It was dark when she came to the Twenty-Third Street exit. 

It was getting dark and cold. There were townhouses along the street but all windows were barred and doors were locked. She found a house with a wooden bench on the front porch. She sat Tommy on the bench and sat next to him.

“I don’t feel good, Mommy. I’m thirsty.”

“I know. Me too. We’ll sleep here. Maybe we’ll feel better in the morning.”

She stretched him out on the bench and wrapped herself around him to keep him warm. Eventually, they both slept.

The next morning, Tommy did not want to get up.

“I feel sick, Mommy. I’m thirsty, Mommy. I need to pee. I don’t wanna walk, Mommy.”

She kissed Tommy. She hugged him. She helped him to pee. Then she picked him up and started walking. Eventually, they found Sixteen Avenue. 

She said, “Tommy, do you remember if Daddy said to turn right or left on Sixteenth Avenue. I don’t remember.”

“I don’t know, Mommy.”

They turned left. She knew she had to turn on Birch or Elm Street. But the streets here were named for birds, not trees: Partridge Street, Sparrow Lane, Parrot Road. She hoped that after the bird names, there would be tree names. But then she came to Jefferson Road, then Lincoln Street. They turned around.

When they finally came to a Redwood Lane, Tommy said. “I feel sick, Mommy. I gotta lie down. Please, Mommy.”

She saw a grassy patch ahead and walked to it. She was feeling warm. Tommy’s head felt hot. She took off her coat and put it on the grass for Tommy to rest on. He closed his eyes. She lay down next to him. 

The next morning, she could not wake him. 

“Tommy. No. Wake up. Please. Tommy. Wake up.” She shook him, but he would not wake up. She put her cheek against his and rested her head on the ground, crying.

Three days later, a rescue team searching for survivors found their bodies. They were among the number of dead who somehow failed to evacuate. The number was in the thousands.

Please help me in my personal war against global warming. Friend me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter, and connect with me on LinkedIn. I am writing a powerful global warming novel. I need a great publishing company to market it and print a lot of copies. Publishers look at an author's social media numbers as a sign of potential buyers. So please Friend me, Follow me, and Connect with me. Consider it as doing a small part in saving humanity from the ravages of global warming. Thanks.

Shawn Oueinsteen      

http://www.shawnoueinsteen.com 

https://mourningdovenovel.blogspot.com