From Climate Change To

Social Change

For those who wish to leave the world a better place than they were born into.

Serena Wei Wei Gao

高玮玮

am IWhy am I here?

Structure1- Why is climate change a chance? – What commitments do you hold in your life which bring you here?

- Who am I ? - Why are you here?

2- What is climate change about? – We do not know whether climate change is really happening….

– What the root cause of “climate change”?

3- How to enact social change? – What do we have to offer to this world?

Listen to how you listen.

My Story

Click to see a video report!

-Research Assistant for a paper on Climate Change and Sea Level Rise for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Why are you here?

Structure1- Why is climate change a chance? – What commitments do you hold in your life which bring you here?

- Who am I ? - Why are you here?

2- What is climate change about? – We do not know whether climate change is really happening….

– What the root cause of “climate change”?

3- How to enact social change? – What do we have to offer to this world?

What does climate change mean

to you?

Our story…

Listen to how you

listen

am IWhy am I here?

ssuming that scientists are correct, that climate change is human induced, this would mean actions of human beings are equivalent to a geological force of the planet. This would mean that the feedback loop of a system of such a scale is usually longer than human beings are able to comprehend, at least until the system reaches a tipping point. It is like blowing a candle, if one exerts a force smaller than the system, the system will only flicker, but if equal to or greater to the system itself, it will fundamentally alter-- The candle will turn into smoke.

Climate ChangeA

2009 CO2 Concentration: 389

After 35 more years at the current rate of increase

 

Translate to climate

science, the tipping point means 2 degrees temperature rise.

How much time do we have under this assumption?

The scientists says that from 2007, the earth’s average temperature has risen by 0.74 degrees in the period from 1906 to 2005. The latest science allows 1000 billion CO2 emission from 2000 to 2050 if the temperature is kept at 2 degree. From 2000-2009, we have used 1/3 of the quota.

How

to d

eal w

ith

it?

The way human beings have responded is to reduce green house gases

(GHG) such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, i.e. CDM, emission trading, carbon capture and storage technology or citizens driving less.  From United Nations negotiations, to NGO’s campaigns targeting individuals’ low-carbon lifestyle, we assume that carbon dioxide is the cause, and the solution.

But the funny thing is, carbon dioxide is a product of every living creature’s

breathing. Plants absorbs carbon dioxide in the air, and when they die, some of the carbon become trapped and turn into fossil fuels buried under the ground. Looking closer at the previous graph, the planet has been self-balancing itself for the at least the past 8000,000 years. It is human consumption of energy which comes from burning these fossil fuels, which turned millions of years’ accumulation into a sudden pulse of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, quicker than the living plants are able to absorb.

We cannot solve problems with the same mindset that created them

- ALBERT EINSTEIN

What drives this consumption?

What if the way we think is shaped by the system we are in?

What if…

Climate change is only a symptom of a planet

attempting to rebalance itself, a planet made ill by the system of human beings, a system based on extraction, manipulation and transportation of natural resources towards centralized locations.

The basis of this system assumes nature resources are objects. Including human beings.

By assuming nature is an object of extraction and manipulation,

we assumed that we are separated.

“The planet is a super organismic system and evolution is the result of co-operative not competitive processes that life did not take over the world by combat but by networking

Darwin’s grand vision is not wrong, only

incomplete”

Lyn Margulis Evolutionary Biologist

A paradigm

shift

A Network for Change

A

para

digm

sh

ift

A Network for Change

Only A Point Of View

How are you feeling at this moment?

So Why am I here? I am committed to the possibility of a conscious and benevolent

transition to a world where we can live together, all of us ‘face-to-face’ in a way that reflects the deep and natural interconnectedness and prior unity of our reality.

I am committed to a quality of individual and collective realization of ‘reality itself’ that is compassionate and loving.

This involves a kind of liberation from the way in which much of our collective attention has become fixed and institutionalized in the collective dream of the industrial era, its effects and our coping mechanisms.

Kubler Ross Grief Cycle- Combat Climate Change Coalition – formed by all civic societies in HK- “Fight Against” Climate Change- “To avoid a future”…- Small individual behavior change matter…

Structure1- Why is climate change a chance? – What commitments do you hold in your life which bring you here?

- Who am I ? - Why are you here?

2- What is climate change about? – We do not know whether climate change is really happening….

– What the root cause of “climate change”?

3- How to enact social change? – What do we have to offer to this world?

When does change take place?

Discussion

Only A Point Of View

4 phases to a conversation

Polite Sustainable Difference

InquiryDialogue

Bohm Dialogue

1- Suspending assumptions 2- Acknowledge Each other as Collegues

3- Have a facilitator

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Listen to how you listen.

AParadigm

Shift

?

Thank you for listening, the most precious gift one can give to another human beings.