A presentation to the Middle Tennessee State University chapter of Students for Environmental Action (SEAofMTSU), in celebration of Earth Week 2016, April 21, 2016.

1. Earth Day 2016
Glimmers of hope

2. Dr. Phil Oliver
300 JUB

3. Thanks to Evan and SEAofMTSU for the invitation, I’m happy
to return. Two years ago on this occasion I debated a Rabbi,
today I guess I’ll just debate (or agree with) myself… pending
your questions and comments of course.

4. But lately the voices of darkness and despair seem to have the upper hand. For
instance,

5. A New Dark Age Looms nyt
IMAGINE a future in which humanity’s accumulated wisdom
about Earth — our vast experience with weather trends, fish
spawning and migration patterns, plant pollination and much
more — turns increasingly obsolete. As each decade passes,
knowledge of Earth’s past becomes progressively less effective as a
guide to the future. Civilization enters a dark age in its practical
understanding of our planet.
To comprehend how this could occur, picture yourself in our
grandchildren’s time, a century hence. Significant global warming
has occurred, as scientists predicted. Nature’s longstanding,
repeatable patterns — relied on for millenniums by humanity to
plan everything from infrastructure to agriculture — are no longer
so reliable. Cycles that have been largely unwavering during
modern human history are disrupted by substantial changes in
temperature and precipitation...

6. ...Civilization’s understanding of Earth has expanded
enormously in recent decades, making humanity safer and
more prosperous. As the patterns that we have come to expect
are disrupted by warming temperatures, we will face huge
challenges feeding a growing population and prospering
within our planet’s finite resources. New developments in
science offer our best hope for keeping up, but this is by no
means guaranteed.
Our grandchildren could grow up knowing less about the
planet than we do today. This is not a legacy we want to leave
them. Yet we are on the verge of ensuring this happens.
William B. Gail is a founder of the Global Weather Corporation, a past president of the American
Meteorological Society and the author of “Climate Conundrums: What the Climate Debate Reveals
About Us.”

7. Apple just found a powerful new way to
make people care about the planet
...The company is rolling out “Apps for Earth,” in which the App Store will, for 10 days, feature 27
popular apps — including Angry Birds 2, Jurassic World: The Game, and SimCity BuildIt — that have
added new environmental content for Earth Day.
Money spent buying one of these 27 apps, or making purchases within them, will then support the
World Wildlife Fund, to help advance its climate and environmental initiatives. And given the size of
the App store itself — which has many million users across 155 countries — and the huge reach of
some of the apps (Angry Birds 2 has been downloaded 85 million times, for instance), it just might
one of the corporate world’s farthest-reaching green initiatives… (continues)
==
This may be a modest source of hope, but it could be emblematic of a huge shift in consciousness
towards a greater and wider sense of our responsibility for the fate of the earth than we’ve seen
before.

9. Up@dawn, 4.22.14. After class, in
celebration of Earth Week, I get to
debate my friend the Rabbi (who
happens also to be a regular on the
interfaith panel circuit, and an adept
rhetorician) on God. Oh boy.
I've been assigned the "negative"
proposition. I can do that, just
barely, if allowed (like my esteemed
opponent) to stipulate a non-
standard definition. He'll redefine
"God," to affirm the resolution. I'll
redefine (or maybe just evade)
"possible" to deny it, and to affirm
what in my opinion is incontestable:
our species' urgent need to find
common ground in addressing the
environmental challenges of our
time.
I'll borrow E.O. Wilson's tone and
temper in The Creation...

10. “I am a secular humanist. I think
existence is what we make of it as
individuals. There is no guarantee
of life after death, and heaven and
hell are what we create for
ourselves, on this planet. There is
no other home... For you, the glory
of an unseen divinity; for me, the
glory of the universe revealed at
last. For you, the belief in God
made flesh to save mankind; for
me, the belief in Promethean fire
seized to set men free. You have
found your final truth; I am still
searching.”

11. “I may be wrong, you may be
wrong. We may both be partly right.
Does this difference in worldview
separate us in all things? It does
not. You and I and every other
human being strive for the
imperatives of security, freedom of
choice, personal dignity, and a
cause to believe in that is larger
than ourselves.
Let us see, then, if we can, and you
are willing, to meet on the near side
of metaphysics in order to deal with
the real world we share…”

12. My brief, though straying from the letter of our
forensic charge, is simple: there's no indication that
extra-human help is on its way. In fact, every
indication suggests we're on our own, without
practical recourse to any "final truth." We've got to
find it within ourselves to conform our personal
behaviors and public policies to ameliorative,
sustainable alternatives.
If God-talk (including the sort of God-talk Spinoza
and Einstein and maybe Rabbi Rami have
sponsored) brings more of us on board with that
message, then it's "possible" - which by high
redefinition I interpret to mean constructive and
pragmatically, experimentally, provisionally
vindicated.

13. But, and it's a big but: in my
experience, those who embrace
that sort of God and talk that sort of
talk tend, in the words of "Miss
Generosity," to "decide no more
than God." That is, they walk away
from a firm commitment to finding
human solutions to overwhelming
anthropogenic challenges. They
render God impossible, in the
stipulated sense.
That's what I think I'm going to say.
But I don't get to speak first, so I
may have to improvise. In the larger
sense, we all have to improvise a
world our kind can continue to live
in.
Happy Earth Week!

14. “Perhaps the time has come to
cease calling it the
'environmentalist' view, as though it
were a lobbying effort outside the
mainstream of human activity, and
to start calling it the real-world
view.”
“You are capable of more than you
know. Choose a goal that seems
right for you and strive to be the
best, however hard the path. Aim
high. Behave honorably. Prepare to
be alone at times, and to endure
failure. Persist! The world needs all
you can give.”
“Humanity is a biological species,
living in a biological environment,
because like all species, we are
exquisitely adapted in everything:
from our behavior, to our genetics,
to our physiology, to that particular
environment in which we live. The
earth is our home. Unless we
preserve the rest of life, as a sacred
duty, we will be endangering
ourselves by destroying the home
in which we evolved, and on which
we completely depend.”

15. “Humanity is part of nature, a
species that evolved among
other species. The more closely
we identify ourselves with the
rest of life, the more quickly we
will be able to discover the
sources of human sensibility
and acquire the knowledge on
which an enduring ethic, a
sense of preferred direction,
can be built.”
“In the end ... success or
failure will come down to an
ethical decision, one on
which those now living will
be judged for generations to
come.”
“It often occurs to me that if, against all odds, there is a
judgmental God and heaven, it will come to pass that when
the pearly gates open, those who had the valor to think for
themselves will be escorted to the head of the line,
garlanded, and given their own personal audience.”

16. “Like it or not, and prepared or not,
we are the mind and stewards of
the living world. Our own ultimate
future depends upon that
understanding. We have come a
very long way through the barbaric
period in which we still live, and
now I believe we’ve learned
enough to adopt a transcendent
moral precept concerning the rest
of life. It is simple and easy to say:
Do no further harm to the
biosphere.”

17. “...to save biodiversity, we
need to set aside about half
the earth’s surface as a
natural reserve. I’m not
suggesting we have one
hemisphere for humans
and the other for the rest of
life. I’m talking about
allocating up to one half of
the surface of the land and
the sea as a preserve for
remaining flora and fauna.”
nyt

18. Environmental Ethics Fall
2016
Returning to MTSU, Fall 2016-
Environmental Ethics
Priority registration for Fall '16 is coming soon. If
you're interested in/concerned about the health
and future of "the only home we've ever known,"
consider registering for PHIL 3340, Environmental
Ethics - TTh 4:20, BAS ___ MW 2:20, JUB 202
More info at http://envirojpo.blogspot.com/, or
email phil.oliver@mtsu.edu.

19. Some presidential candidates'
recent statements* give
plenty of cause for concern.
Climate change, says one, is
"very low on the list... we
have much bigger problems.”
Another explicitly rejects the
science of global warming as
just a flawed "computer
model." And another admits
the science but says jobs
matter more.

21. And yet there are important
glimmers of hope, as
sustainable alternatives to the
fossil industry continue to
make unprecedented forward
strides. Our focus in the
course will be on the political
opposition to an effective
response to environmental
degradation, AND on genuine
reasons for optimism that
such a response is still within
our reach.

22. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs.
The Climate by Naomi Klein
Klein argues that the changes to our relationship
with nature and one another that are required
to respond to the climate crisis humanely should
not be viewed as grim penance, but rather as a
kind of gift—a catalyst to transform broken
economic and cultural priorities and to heal
long-festering historical wounds. And she
documents the inspiring movements that have
already begun this process: communities that
are not just refusing to be sites of further fossil
fuel extraction but are building the next,
regeneration-based economies right now.

23. Why then are climatologists
speaking out about the
dangers of global warming?
the answer is that virtually
all of us are now convinced
that global warming poses
a clear and present
danger to civilization.”
Because of our endless delays,
we also have to pull off this
massive
transformation without delay. the
international energy Agency
warns that if we do
not get our emissions under
control by a rather
terrifying2017, our fossil fuel
economy will “lock in” extremely
dangerous warming.

24. ...if we are to have any hope of making the
kind of civilizational leap required of this
fateful decade, we will need to start
believing, once again, that humanity is not
hopelessly selfish and greedy—the image
ceaselessly sold to us by everything from
reality shows to neoclassical economics.

25. Atmosphere of Hope: Searching for
Solutions to the Climate Crisis by
Tim Flannery
Time is running out, but catastrophe is not
inevitable. Around the world people are now
living with the consequences of an altered
climate—with intensified and more frequent
storms, wildfires, droughts and floods. For
some it’s already a question of survival.
Drawing on the latest science, Flannery gives a
snapshot of the trouble we are in and more
crucially, proposes a new way forward,
including rapidly progressing clean
technologies and a “third way” of soft geo-
engineering.

26. Al Gore: The Case for Optimism on Climate Change (TED 2016)

27. 18 months after Apollo 8’s
famous “Earthrise” picture
was first seen on earth in
December 1968, the first
Earth Day was organized...
One of the most essential
facts about the climate
crisis has to do with the
sky.

28. As this picture illustrates, the sky is
not the vast and limitless expanse
that appears when we look up from
the ground. It is a very thin shell of
atmosphere surrounding the planet.
That right now is the open sewer for
our industrial civilization as it's
currently organized. We are
spewing 110 million tons of heat-
trapping global warming pollution
into it every 24 hours, free of
charge...

29. ...the accumulated amount of man-
made, global warming pollution that
is up in the atmosphere now traps
as much extra heat energy as
would be released by 400,000
Hiroshima-class atomic bombs
exploding every 24 hours, 365 days
a year.
...we're having record-breaking
temperatures. Fourteen of the 15 of
the hottest years ever measured
with instruments have been in this
young century. The hottest of all
was last year.Last month was the
371st month in a row warmer than
the 20th-century average. And for
the first time, not only the warmest
January, but for the first time, it was
more than two degrees Fahrenheit
warmer than the average. These
higher temperatures are having an
effect on animals, plants, people,
ecosystems.

30. So the answer to the question, "Must we
change?" is yes, we have to change. "Can we
change?" This is the exciting news! The best
projections in the world 16 years ago were that
by 2010, the world would be able to install 30
gigawatts of wind capacity. We beat that mark by
14 and a half times over. We see an exponential
curve for wind installations now. We see the cost
coming down dramatically. Some countries --
take Germany -- one day last December, got 81
percent of all its energy from renewable
resources, mainly solar and wind. A lot of
countries are getting more than half on an
average basis.

31. More good news: energy storage,
from batteries particularly, is now
beginning to take off because the
cost has been coming down very
dramatically... With solar, the news
is even more exciting! The best
projections 14 years ago were that
we would install one gigawatt per
year by 2010. When 2010 came
around, we beat that mark by 17
times over. Last year, we beat it by
58 times over. This year, we're on
track to beat it 68 times over.

32. This is the biggest new business opportunity in the history of the world, and two-thirds of it is in
the private sector. [Something we’ll definitely talk about in connection with Naomi Klein’s This
Changes Everything.]
We are seeing an explosion of new investment. Starting in 2010, investments globally in
renewable electricity generation surpassed fossils. The gap has been growing ever since.
The projections for the future are even more dramatic, even though fossil energy is now still
subsidized at a rate 40 times larger than renewables. And by the way, if you add the projections
for nuclear on here, particularly if you assume that the work many are doing to try to break
through to safer and more acceptable, more affordable forms of nuclear, this could change
even more dramatically.

33. Last and biggest question, "Will we change?" Paris really was a
breakthrough, some of the provisions are binding and the regular reviews
will matter a lot. But nations aren't waiting, they're going ahead. China has
already announced that starting next year, they're adopting a nationwide
cap and trade system. They will likely link up with the European Union.
The United States has already been changing. All of these coal plants
were proposed in the next 10 years and canceled. All of these existing
coal plants were retired. All of these coal plants have had their
retirement announced. All of them -- canceled. We are moving forward.
Last year -- if you look at all of the investment in new electricity generation
in the United States,almost three-quarters was from renewable energy,
mostly wind and solar.

34. When I was 13 years old, I heard
that proposal by President Kennedy
to land a person on the Moon and
bring him back safely in 10 years.
And I heard adults of that day and
time say, "That's reckless,
expensive, may well fail." But eight
years and two months later, in the
moment that Neil Armstrong set
foot on the Moon, there was great
cheer that went up in NASA's
mission control in Houston. Here's
a little-known fact about that: the
average age of the systems
engineers, the controllers in the
room that day, was 26, which
means, among other things, their
age, when they heard that
challenge, was 18.

35. When the abolitionists started their
movement, they met with no after
no after no. And then came a yes.
The Women's Suffrage and
Women's Rights Movement met
endless no's, until finally, there was
a yes. The Civil Rights Movement,
the movement against apartheid,
and more recently, the movement
for gay and lesbian rights here in
the United States and elsewhere.
After the final "no" comes a "yes."
"After the final no there comes a
yes
And on that yes the future world
depends" - Wallace Stevens

36. On Christmas Eve of 1968, the
astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission,
orbiting the moon, took a photo with
the gray, craggy surface of the moon
in the foreground and the bright blue
Earth coming up behind, only half of
it visible. That photo was called
"Earthrise," and it really shook
people up because it made the Earth
look so fragile, and because the
photo was taken by actual people,
not just a satellite.

37. December 7 is normally
commemorated "in infamy," but it
deserves to be celebrated for a
relatively-unsung photograph that
has the power to transform
consciousness and expand identity.
"It was on this day in 1972 that
astronauts on the Apollo 17
spacecraft took a famous
photograph of the Earth, a photo
that came to be known as "The
Blue Marble." Photographs of the
Earth from space were still
relatively new at this time.

38. It's known as "The Blue Marble"
because that's how the Earth
looked to the astronauts. It was the
first clear photo of the Earth,
because the sun was at the
astronauts' back, and so the planet
appears lit up and you can distinctly
see blue, white, brown, even green.
It became a symbol of the
environmental movement of the
1970s, and it's the image that gets
put on flags, T-shirts, bumper
stickers, and posters. WA

39. Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Hope
I have a bumper sticker on my car: "Evolve - every
day is Earth Day." It's a message of hope. A better,
cleaner, safer world inhabited by evolved, evolving
humans who care deeply about the conditions of life
for themselves and their progeny is imaginable. But
we must not be content merely to dream it. The
inestimable Wendell Berry says if we care about
creating a livable future we must "give all to the
present."
And so, it's very sad to learn that many young people
say they're presently hopeless. That's what Earth Day
can and must address: the need to give children
authentic grounds for hope. "Yes we can" etc. Just as
Al Gore says political will is a renewable resource, so
is a spirit of hopefulness. Expect the worst, hope for
the best, Berry says:

40. Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the
facts.
And consider the fact that our own
hopeful disposition, even in the teeth
of disappointment and setback, may be
one of the conditions of ultimate
success.

41. Thursday, April 22, 2010
Happy 40th Earth Day!
Earth Day's founder was a senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson. His goal was to force environmental issues onto the national agenda.
Before 1970, stories about the environment were almost never reported. One Earth Day organizer said that back then, "Environment was a
word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news."
In 1969, an oil pipe ruptured just off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, causing 200,000 gallons of crude oil to burst forth and then
slowly leak out and spread over an 800-square-mile slick. It took 11 days to plug the hole. The oil poisoned seals and dolphins, whose
corpses washed up onto California beaches, and it killed thousands of seabirds as well. Senator Nelson visited the site of the enormous
ecological disaster and was outraged that nobody in Washington seemed to be concerned about the great devastation to the natural
environment. And then he realized that many people simply didn't really know.
So he proposed a national "teach-in," an event to take place on universities campuses around the nation, one that would educate the public, raise
awareness on environmental issues, and make politicians pay attention to these things, so that they would make laws to protect the environment in order
to, as he said, "stem the tide of environmental disaster."

42. He saw how successful the anti-war protestors were at getting media coverage — and therefore, making politicians take notice — and
he decided to base his campaign for environmental awareness on their model. He also hoped to infuse the same student anti-war
energy into the environmental cause. He proposed setting aside one day a year as a national day of observance about environmental
problems. The New York Times picked up the story in late September 1969, a great boon to the grassroots organizers of the campaign,
who had no Internet to spread the word.
At first, Senator Nelson called it National Environment Teach-In Day, but his friend, a New York advertising executive suggested "Earth
Day," especially catchy since it rhymes with "birthday," and that's what the press began to call it. Historian Adam Rome has called Earth
Day the "most famous unknown event in modern American history."
About 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. They gathered at assemblies in high school gyms, at university
plazas, in suburban city parks. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Gaylord Nelson had graduated from law school, people met up at 4:45
a.m. for an "Earth Service," where, according to one report, they "greeted the sunrise with a Sanskrit invocation and read together from Aldo Leopold,
Rachel Carson, Thoreau, and the Bible." Girl Scouts distributed pamphlets that Wisconsin grad students had written, which gave household tips for
helping to preserve the environment. Tens of thousands met up in Philadelphia's Fairmont Park — and stayed there for days — and 100,000 streamed
into Fifth Avenue in New York City. People celebrated spring weather and gave impassioned political speeches about environmental issues.

43. Though unstructured and somewhat incohesive,
Earth Day was hugely successful. Environmental
issues found a prominent place on the political
agenda. Earth Day in April 1970 helped lead to the
creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by
the end of that year (the EPA was created December
2, 1970), as well as to the passage of legislation like
the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species
acts. Writer's Almanac
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Earth is home
Earth Day is every day. Yann Arthus-Bertrand at TED:
This Earth is four and a half billion years old. These
plants, several hundred million years old. And we
humans have been walking upright for only 200
thousand years... For the past 30 years I've been closely
watching the earth and its dwellers from high up in the
sky.Our life is tied to the wellbeing of our planet.We
depend on water, forests, deserts, oceans.Fishing,
breeding, farming are still the world's foremost human
occupations. And what binds us together is far greater
than what divides us. We all share the same need for the
earth's gifts. The same wish to rise above ourselves, and
become better. And yet we carry on raising walls to keep
us apart.

44. Today our greatest battle is to
protect the natural offerings of our
planet. In less than 50 years we've
altered it more thoroughly than in
the entire history of mankind. Half
of the world's forests have
vanished. Water resources are
running low.Intensive farming is
depleting soils. Our energy sources
are not sustainable. The climate is
changing. We are endangering
ourselves. We're only trying to
improve our lives. But the wealth
gaps are growing wider. We haven't
yet understood that we're going at a
much faster pace than the planet
can sustain. We know that solutions
are available today. We all have the
power to change this trendfor the
better. So what are we waiting for?

46. Friday, April 22, 2011
Happy Earth Day
In honor of Earth Day 2011, here's
350.org's Bill McKibben. "The only
thing that a morally awake person can do
when the worst thing that’s ever
happened is happening is try to change
those odds."

47. No more small steps for the climate and economic justice movement: now is the time to leap. A conversation with Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis (This
Changes Everything), Bill McKibben (350.org) and Asad Rehman (Friend of the Earth UK) and special guests.

48. I decline to accept the end of man… I believe that man will not merely
endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among
creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit
capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the
writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man
endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor
and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have
been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the
record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure
and prevail. William Faulkner

49. "A New Dark Age Looms," says a currently-popular Times op-ed, on the eve of my Earth Week
talk to the Students for Environmental Action which I'm calling "Glimmers of Hope."
Inveterate optimism may not sell newspapers, may in fact be delusional - "Drumpf Wins New
York" is today's big headline - but we've all gotta be what we're gonna be. My glass remains half
full.
Why do I discern hopeful glimmers where others detect only the impending darkness? I follow the
same prompt that fills William Gail with Gloom, but it takes me to a better place. "Picture yourself
in our grandchildren’s time, a century hence." My grandchildren are going to be geniuses, maybe
yours are too. Deep pessimism is an indulgence we owe it to them to forego, out of loyalty to their
genius.
That's not to deny the truth of Gail's analysis, "that disrupting nature’s patterns could extend well
beyond extreme weather, with far more pervasive impacts" on the predictive models that allow us
to project and manage food production, develop adequate infrastructure, anticipate oceanic
impacts, and generally just stay a step ahead of catastrophe.

50. But it is to insist that while "our grandchildren could grow up knowing less about the
planet than we do today," they could also commit themselves more intelligently and
willfully to new and better patterns of living that we've not even imagined, and to
technologies we've not taken seriously enough. Electric cars, rockets to Mars, the
wind, the sun, and who knows what else are all theirs for the harvesting. I'm betting
on them, on the future. As Mr. Faulkner said, it is the poet's, the writer's, the
philosopher's
duty and privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of
the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and
sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. [His] voice need not merely be
the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure
and prevail.
A glimmer of hope is still hope.

51. I got a gracious note the other day
from the student who invited me
last time I spoke to SEAofMTSU,
giving me too much credit for
helping him get accepted by ten
graduate programs. Good luck,
William! Students like you are our
greatest source of hope and
optimism for the Earth.

52. My generation’s mistakes, your generation’s epic challenge
By Stewart L. Udall
To My Grandchildren—
This is the most important letter I will ever write. It concerns your future—and the
tomorrows of the innumerable human beings who share this vulnerable, fragile planet
with you.
It involves changes that must be made if environmental disasters are to be avoided. The
response to this challenge will shape the future of the entire human race… (continues)

53. Why am I so optimistic about your future? Because the world has
had its fill of fear and is hungry for hope. Because an educational
revolution has been underway for the past two decades in several
countries and has enhanced the capacity of nations to deal with
unprecedented challenges. As documented by Thomas L. Friedman
in his book, The World Is Flat, the doubling and prospective
tripling of the number of highly trained, selfless scientists and
engineers has produced a pool of brainpower and moral power that
is ready to create the building blocks of a new and better world.
The challenges that your generation faces will test your ingenuity
and generosity. Your eyes will scan horizons that human beings
have never contemplated.

54. Whether you are a person of faith who believes the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, whether
you are an individual who has had mystical experiences that link you to the network of eternity, or
whether you are a fervent conservationist who wants to leave a legacy for your progeny, the earth needs
your devotion and tender care.
Go well, do well, my children! Support all endeavors that promise a better life for the inhabitants of our
planet. Cherish sunsets, wild creations, and wild places. Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of
the earth!

56. More info at
http://envirojpo.blogspot.com/,
or email phil.oliver@mtsu.edu.