It seems churlish to gripe, but where family and friends see action after impasse,  acceptance winning over denial and a victory for climate action and environmentalists, I see an institution in shambles pursuing a morally bankrupt strategy, and experience a creeping dread. Without even the semblance of embarrassment, we are poised to trot out a climate “solution” devised by Enron based on antique and totally inaccurate climate science treating the matter as a second-tier problem because to do anything else would be, well, difficult.

What is wanted at this juncture is a quick shift from the old public debate, on whether there is such a thing as climate change, to a conflict over whether nonlinear, catastrophic change is underway. It is, of course, and environmentalists ought to be carrying the brunt of the argument, but US environmentalists have abdicated responsibility for truth telling on climate.

Why there is some movement on climate is no mystery and environmentalists have nothing to do with it. The highest ranks of political leadership have deigned to consider the matter, now that the election is safely over, because early impacts nearly knocked out the financial capital of the nation and people are talking. The surge of climate activism, evidenced by 350.org’s triumphant tour and rising direct action, is the product of years of methodical campaigning and Bill’s ball-busting schedule of appearances. This small crack in an otherwise monolithic wall of denial is a result of foreseeable factors and the product of hard work and stubborn honesty.

Since we have been working toward this moment for over twenty years, some obvious questions are raised. Why did McKibben and 350.org have to spend five years to build a national political platform from scratch when environmentalists already have one? Why are environmentalists utterly unprepared to react to early impacts like Sandy when we should be exercising the muscular authority of prophets proved right? Why, above all, are we poised to participate in a mass political illusion that climate change is relatively small scale and solvable without major change?

For nearly a decade I have conducted periodic surveys comparing climate science findings and and the position of major U.S. environmental organizations. The latest survey, conducted in July (http://www.brightlines.org/papers.php), focused on the science of sea level rise.

[In summary, antique climate science in the 2008 IPCC Fourth Report projects 1 foot of sea level rise by the end of the century. Current “consensus” climate science, likely to be enshrined in the IPCC Fifth Report due out next year, bumps that to 3+ feet, assuming that climate change is linear, but it’s not, and Jim Hansen’s guesstimate of 50 feet (15 meters), spelling the end of civilization and global eco-catastrophe, is as precise as necessary for climate activism.]

A review of all public material made available by 18 major environmental organizations shows that 11 organizations make no reference to climate science on sea level rise, 3 rely on outdated IPCC Reports (EDF, Greenpeace, NRDC), and just 4 reference any recent science (Environment America, National Wildlife Federation, Union of Concerned Scientists and World Resources Institute). None of the 18 organizations reference any climate science indicating that climate change is rapid and non-linear. None mention Jim Hansen’s work. One organization endorses the global target of 350 ppm (Sierra Club), but buries it in a report. A few organizations describe climate as the greatest global threat, but none present it so. In the July survey, 4 organizations put climate on their home page (5 others featured fossil fuel issues and programs, but without direct reference to  climate).

A follow–up survey on November 25, tabulating the first image presented on each organization’s website, finds a cornucopia of whales, turtles and fish (4 organizations), wolves and bears (4), pies (2) and one fashion model. 4 organizations put climate images front and center on the homepage (Friends of the Earth, NRDC, Sierra Club, World Resources Institute), but even these offer mostly mixed messages.

[NRDC’s home page banner reads “It’s Time to Address Carbon Pollution” across an image of smokestacks, but before that message is a wolf popup page (“Call Off the Guns!”). The Sierra Club has Mike Brune looking serious in front of a scene of coastal devastation, presumably Hurricane Sandy, but within seconds, the web slide show moves on to a cheerful mix of holiday greetings and... more bears.]

Heartbeats away from global eco-suicide, our major environmental organizations – the very institutions we created to prepare for the crisis now upon us – appear oblivious. For climate activists, environmental organizations are rarely thought about – like a set of doddering aunts and uncles who send sweaters in odd colors as birthday presents – nice enough and good intentioned, on the whole, but out of sight and out of mind when important matters are at hand. But that is dangerous thinking, because our organizations have, and will continue to hold the power to legitimize a wholly inaccurte definition of the threat.

In the fullness of time, our organizations would adjust, perhaps. One would think that even the most determinedly myopic wilderness/bear/whale aficionado must eventually conclude that trying to preserve a small piece of a collapsing global eco-system is like battling the tide with teaspoons. The arc of public support is long, but bends towards reality.

But there is no time for contributor trends to shift organizational attention and there is no more middle ground. Ignoring cataclysmic change, agreeing to dinky solutions, treating climate as merely one more single issue and refusing to even discuss logical steps toward cooperative, institutional action are all signals of a profoundly disturbed culture – one that prefers stability over reality, maintenance of existing privilege and structure over change, and the security of collective ignorance over the uncomfortable uncertainties of coming to grips with reality. There is not even a debate. It will simply proceed without notice.

I am reminded of a favorite quote from Kurt Vonnegut, in his 1970 address at Bennington College, which is often truncated. The frequently quoted part is,”Everything is going to become unimaginably worse, and never get better again.”

The following line is, “If I lied to you about that, you would sense that I’d lied to you, and that would be another cause for gloom. We have enough causes for gloom.”

I field managed the crew that day, my first day canvassing. We were in Newton, Massachusetts talking about the Bottle Bill, unknowingly standing on the cusp of the high point of public support for US environmentalism. It was an epochal moment. The next three summers saw an explosion of door-to-door canvassing, telephone outreach and direct mail that established the mechanisms which even now sustain mass membership bases of our largest organizations. Soliciting and retaining these large, tenuously connected contributor bases is one reason that our major organizations are so reluctant to challenge conventional thinking on climate.

I was a lousy canvasser. The best door-to-door fundraisers are preternaturally upbeat, friendly and outgoing. Some even have the knack for turning brief encounters at the door into durable friendships. More importantly, good canvassers do not take rejection personally. They shake off each dismissal before ringing the next doorbell. I was was not of this disposition, inclining to debate opposition instead of passing quietly by, and to sulk over rejections rather than sprint in search of the next supporter.

I was thinking about this last night as I went out to canvass our neighbors. The JPGH water meter froze yesterday and our plasterer needed running water by morning. With the schedule for completing major work down to a week, we cannot put off plasterwork for even a day. So I put on my best canvasser smile and set to ringing door bells.

“Hi,” I said, “I’m Ken, with the JP Green House, and we’re here today talking with folks in the Bourne neighborhood about the problem of water deprivation. I have here a statement of support signed by many of your neighbors that I’d like you to take a look at. We’re asking for a pledge of 120 gallons, which can be automatically drawn from your outdoor faucet for your convenience. Most people are pledging 40 gallons a day.” At least that’s what I planned to say, but I never got past the first sentence.

Our neighbors aren’t strangers, they are friends and they’ve followed construction triumphs and vicissitudes with close attention. They couldn’t restrain themselves to let me get through the deadpan routine, cutting in with concerned questions and in one case to shoot back, equally deadpan, “I’m sorry, but we don’t give water at the door.”

Entering a new neighborhood is a delicate thing, but something many Americans do without much thought. Most folks pick a new apartment or house based on physical characteristics, neighborhood attributes, closeness to the T or highway, cost and so on. For all the wistful progressive language about “community values” and conservative concern for “community standards,” most Americans don’t meet their neighbors until they are moved in. This blasé attitude makes sense in a nation as vigorously on the move as ours. According to the US Census Bureau, the median duration of residency in the US is just 5.2 years. If you’ll be moving on next year, what does it matter who lives next door?

Andrée and I knew when we starting looking for a home together that we might be there for some time, perhaps even into old age, so when we began to look seriously at 133 Bourne Street, we decided to meet our potential neighbors. When the first concept of the JP Green House began to take shape, we knew that such a project could not move forward without consulting the folks who would have to live with our choices.

Over the course of a couple weeks in June, 2008, we canvassed the Catharine/Bourne crossroads turf. We were welcomed, quite literally, with open arms. Invited to sit at the dinner table, crawled over by toddlers and pets, quizzed, knowledgeably and in detail, about our design and construction ideas, taken in hand and introduced to the next set of neighbors and instructed to regularly report back. We learned about Peg Prebble long before we met her, the former motorcycle mechanic turned electrician who watched over 133 Bourne Street, like some Druid spirit of ancient buildings. Peg was the one who realized pipes had burst and called the Water Department, who covered busted windows and traced a mewling sound to brickwork below the house and rescued the stuck kitten. Who else were we going to hire when it came time to find our electrician? Who other than Peg would have worked until midnight, on top of her a full day of regular work, to get the project ready for inspection before she went off on vacation?

We could not, had we drafted guidelines ourselves, have found a more welcoming, warm, kid-full & kid friendly neighborhood. It does not diminish the glow to say that much of the enthusiasm rose from relief that someone would finally tackle the dingy, abandoned, white elephant of a building glowering over the intersection. Anyone would have been welcomed, I think, but not everyone would have been welcomed as warmly.

Joe McDonough, our taciturn plasterer, got his water this morning, off the tap at Christine & Linda’s house across the way. I hadn’t had much chance, recently, to speak with their boys Gabriel, 8, and Louis, 5ish, so after the water matter was squared away I had questions to answer. “Will there be a tub that is hot?” asked Loius. I spoke of our plan to put the old cast iron bathtub up on bricks at the edge of the garden, to fill with water and kindle wood fires beneath. “Oh,” he said, “I meant hot-tub not hot tub.” Come next winter, I said, we shall have the best hot tub for hot-tubbing in all JP, and he seemed pleased.

Only one of the slew of digital shots I took this morning of the plastering crew in action is any good. Thus we find quantified, unlooked for proof that plasterers are indeed faster beings then plumbers, carpenters or electricians, who are well recorded in many carefully framed shots because they do not move out of frame in the split second between flash and shutter.

“I am old enough to firmly believe in climate change. I was born when the planet was just ending several warming decades which had followed several cooling decades, which were imbedded in the general warming which followed the Little Ice Age.”

That comment managed to hijack an interesting back & forth commentary on the merits of comparing Abolition and climate action, leaving one regular Grist poster, “…puzzled by the tolerance shown towards trolls at Grist.”

The old, foaming-at-the-mouth diatribes of climate denialists were unsubtle. This new brand of obfuscatory commentary is coy and smirking, and smarter then old school Dittoheadism.

We’re not overrun with trolls, we’ve got trouble with Tribbles.

Only Trekkies of the first generation will likely recall the over-the-top second season episode of Stare Trek, “The Trouble With Tribbles.” The problem with the cutesy furry Tribbles, which even Dr. Spock found initially nonthreatening, was that they multiplied swiftly, filling every nook and cranny. So to, do the Tribbles of anti-climate action infiltrate cute points into any discussion niche, sidetracking to–the–point conversation, and filling what might otherwise be useful space with blather masquerading as discourse.

But what to do? Should we ignore them? Ridicule them? Ban them?

I was formerly, and firmly, of the kick ‘em out view – see Why do we respond to Bozos? – but find that I’ve changed my mind. It’s increasingly clear that climate discussion, indeed all modern life, exists on a continuum of climate denial. Few of us have the courage to truly come to terms with a world collapsing around our ears; it is most likely impossible to do so without leadership or institutions to validate an unflinching acceptance of reality.

My partner Andrée came home puzzled the other night from a writers’ group meeting where she presented a first cut at turning our JP Green House experience into a book. She’d gotten surprisingly vehement responses from a group of successful, liberal writers who objected, not to our proposal, per se, but to the climate cataclysm premise on which our project, the book and, indeed our lives are based.

“You can’t say that this one problem is more important than other issues,” said one writer, “If you say that, you seem like an extremist.” Another person argued that “of course the problem is being dealt with – how can it not be?  Isn’t climate all over the media?” And there was the dismissive, “Every generation has thought that there was some sort of impending apocalypse that was going to destroy civilization.”

“It’s frustrating to have to counter this sort of objection,” Andrée said, “I ended up arguing climate science.”

And there’s the nub of the matter. Once an argument has devolved to arguing the fine points of climate science, it’s turned Tribble – filling space and nothing more.

The difference between liberal Tribble complaints and free market Tribble cant is slight, and has far more to do with tone and political party than any fundamental distinction in perception of climate risk. Liberals accept that there is such a thing as climate change, but don’t see it as a significant problem because the risks are downplayed and they have faith that government and civil society will head off the worst case scenario. While some on the right continue to insist that the whole thing is a conspiracy, most accept the phenomenon but downplay the risk, arguing that swings in climate are ordinary, and, in any event, the free market will either solve the problem or demonstrate, by failing to act, that the problem is insignificant.

They even use the same arguments. Free market Tribbles go on and on about how environmentalists are scaremongers who can’t seem to stick with one threat. Here’s Bruce Thompson posting on American Thinker.

“Before there was Global Warming Theory to scare the public into rash action, there was Nuclear Winter Theory. The two theories are contradictory, but both were peddled by the political left, and both used some similar rhetorical and political tactics.”

This standard right wing line boilerplate is surprisingly similar to what Andrée heard from the liberal writer’s group… “Every generation has worriers. How is climate difference than nuclear war? If you say that apocalypse is coming and we have to drop everything, isn’t that like Jim Jones?”

It is all of a piece, and whether one is hanging out with liberal Tribble friends or confronting free market Tribbles in the Grist columns, the challenge is primarily psychological, not political.

A year ago we didn’t have this problem. Right wing Tribbles were quiescent and climate activists were content sharing the common ground of “green jobs” with liberal Tribbles. But now, with collapse of Copenhagen and the Dems climate bill having torn away the veil of liberal accommodation and resurgent climate action obstructionism on the right, we must challenge obstinate denial wherever it rears its head.

So I say, let us support a free range for Tribbles of all stripes! And on those who stray into Grist, upon them let us sharpen our tongues and pens!

The question reminds me of the old Bert & I tale about the Maine farmer who, when asked by a motorist for directions to Millinocket, answers, “You cahn’t get theyah from heea.”

Lean observes that “Rarely have such high hopes [for Copenhagen] been dashed so swiftly,” and says “the summit was only saved from total disaster by unprecedented negotiations between the leaders themselves.”

I’m more inclined to see the unprecedented, last-minute, let’s-save-ourselves-from-complete-embarrassment negotiations as adding final insult to grievous injury, but be that as it may, what’s most interesting in Lean’s analysis are the “7 Steps” he outlines to get from debacle to a worthwhile treaty, which may be summed up:

    1. Smooth ruffled feathers in the 187 nations cut out of the last-minute, 5 nation deal cutting.
    2. Persuade countries to pledge significant greenhouse emissions reductions, particularly the Europeans.
    3. Pass U.S. cap & trade bill.
    4. Revamp UN treaty negotiations process.
    5. Ensure that monies pledged in Copenhagen become monies spent.
    6. Figure out what we’re trying to do (extend Kyoto?, do something else?, extend Kyoto without the US?).
    7. Convince China of what we know, but they apparently don’t know, which is that signing a climate treaty is in their best interest.
 
Come now.

This is a list of things we’ve been trying for at least a decade (2, 3, 6 & 7), plus some stuff we apparently need to do now because what we’ve been trying to do for the last decade didn’t work (1, 4), and one thing to follow up on (5). Nowhere does Lean give even a flicker of an idea of how these things might be approached differently and nowhere does Lean consider the possibility that the debacle in Copenhagen might be the direct result of pursuing the wrong climate strategy.

I think we tried an extraordinary, radical approach to political change — in essence, to sneak something into place, bypassing the tough business of challenging how things are — which has inarguablly failed and it’s past time we return to more traditional means of winning tough stuff. In that spirit, here are 7 Steps + 3 I think will be far more productive.

    1. Ramp up the conflict between those nations that have recognized climate realities and are willing to take on the US, China, India, etc. (along with nations that think they can make a buck, and most likely deserve to).
    2. Drop the misplaced attention to emissions and focus on shutting down extractions. There are only a handful of oil, coal, and gas fields in the world, controlled by a few countries — like, whaddya know? the 5 that cut the deal in Copenhagen. Shutting down mines and wells is the only practical, last-minute measure humanity can take, so we’d best start a drumbeat for it now.
    3. Defeat any half-measure, in the US or elsewhere, intended to protect fossil fuel burning, particularly coal, and/or that tries to put off what must be decided immediately to some hypothetical future where political conditions are better, or someone else is responsible.
    4. Use the UN to focus pressure on the top 5-10 nations, but aim for a desperate, multi-lateral agreement between the US, China, Australia, and maybe India to phase out coal extractions (covering over 80% of supply), coupled with the massive ramp-up in efficiency and renewables to replace it; the lion’s share paid for by the US.
    5. Denounce the Copenhagen pledges as the pittance they are (though they should still be paid), and demand spending on a scale concomitant with saving our collective bacon.
    6. Figure out what we’re trying to do (see 4).
    7. Convince China that it is in their interest to sign a climate deal by making it in their interest (see 4). and,

    8. Focus on multi-nationals as well as nations. In all the swirl of action between and about nations, we seem to have forgotten that it’s Exxon-Mobil, BP, Peabody Coal, Gazprom, Shell, and the like that are making more money than the world has ever seen by selling out our future.
    9. Stop dissembling about how bad it is and stop pretending to ourselves that we’re not being disingenuous. Whenever we put this civilization-busting threat in terms of an opportunity (for energy independence, green jobs, or whatever), rather than what it is (a last bid to save our asses), we completely undercut the only point that matters.
    10. Increase — and dramatically increase — turmoil, dissent, civil disobedience, and conflict. We are never, and were never going to quietly negotiate an orderly transfer away from oil, gas, and coal. It will take an immense, global upheaval, which we must both foment and ensure remains non-violent.

The Jamaica Plain Green House today released its second annual list of “Top 10 Worst Christmas Gifts.” The list ranges from $2 stocking stuffers to baubles of the super-rich. JP Green House co-founder Ken Ward said, “These ten items achieved high scores on each of three criteria — profligate, unnecessary, and tasteless energy use — in our rigorous testing protocol.” Ward described the gift ranking methodology as “half an hour of random Googling around.”

1. Greenland Glacier Cruise, $5,247 for ocean view cabin
“Greenland’s west coast has dozens of long, deep fjords, many with glaciers fed by the ice cap that covers most of the country … we meander through the ice packed waters heading towards the bulk of the magnificent Eqip Sermia Glacier. Whilst here, we may have the distinctive opportunity to experience the raw power of nature’s phenomena known as calving.”
Comment: Last year’s booming market in climate change impact tourism has withered, but enterprising cruise lines have lost no time in repackaging Greenland glacier collapse.

2. Plastic Bag of Coal, $1.99
“Embroidered draw strip pouch and 3 lumps of realistic coal! The Perfect Gift for that Naughty Someone! For Ages 7 and up. This is a decoration, not a toy.”
Comment: The most inexpensive gift on the list, which we found for a discounted $1.99 at our local CVS, the plastic bag of coal might well have the worst life-cycle energy cost/retail price ratio on the list.

3. Automatic Twirling Spaghetti Fork, $17.95
“Enjoy your spaghetti in style with this automatically rotating spaghetti fork. Press down to automatically wind up the pasta onto the end of your fork. Less mess and more fun!”
Comment: Cost is $2 more than last year’s winner, Spinmallow, the automatic marshmallow turner.

4. Barbie Jammin’ Jeep, $268
“Music-filled fun and real driving adventure for girls on the go! Realistic details inside and out like a real-working FM radio, doors that really open and close and a rear storage area to carry all her gear. Drives two speeds forward (2.5 & 5 mph max.) and one speed reverse, on hard surfaces and grass.”
Comment: What can we say about a toy designed to spare three- to seven-year-olds the bother of pedaling? Plus, we’ve just had it up to here with purple and pink.

5. Monaco Grand Prix with Supercar, $1.5 million
Comment: Choosing the worst automobile gift suggestion was a tough choice, and we were sorely tempted by both the Mercedes Maybach, a $350,000 (base price) luxury sedan getting 10 city/17 highway mph, and the Bentley Continental GTC, also at 10/17, but classified as a “sub-compact.” But in the end, we had to go with the hand built Dutch Spyker C8, with a modestly bad 13 city/18 highway, because it is offered as a stocking stuffer in the Monaco gift package.

6. The Most Expensive Blackberry Case, $20,000
“The forty-two diamonds that went into the creation of this case weigh in at 3.5 carats and are set in 18-karat gold … Even the carbon fiber leather, specially developed for the case, is gold. Of course, the case is as protective as it is luxurious–the plastic is impact resistant and the screen is entirely protected.”
Comment: We’d sure like to see the steer from which the gold carbon fiber leather comes.

7. Personalized Propane Steak Branding Iron, $32.20
“Safe, reliable and easy to use, the personalized steak branding iron is also practical. Chicken, vegetables and even bread can be branded as well.”
Comment: No comment.

8. Just-cut, Pre-lit Douglas Fir Christmas Tree, $199
“Everyone has his own idea of how to best decorate a Christmas tree. Some people just want a tree that is simple, others something Martha Stewart might make. Then there [are] the folks who might be curious about getting a prelit Christmas tree. This is a great time saver and less hassle too.”
Comment: Every year, Andrée and I complain about how much time we waste decorating the Christmas tree, and what a hassle too.

9. Diamond G-String, $134,000 (may no longer be available)
“The Triumph Luxurious Diamond Thong has 518 brilliant-cut diamonds studded into the front of a black lace thong in a floral pattern. Danielle Luminita, a model from Romania, was carried down the runway on the shoulders of two male models, wearing only the diamond thong. A spokeswoman for Triumph International, the lingerie company that commissioned the thong, said that the thong would be dry cleaned before going on display.”
Comment: OK, this one is from 2008, but we couldn’t resist. If it looks this good on a model, just imagine how it’ll look on your loved one!

10. Cupcake Car, $25,000
“Dallas-based Neiman Marcus said it made a conscious effort to offer more affordable options while not disappointing loyal luxury shoppers…”
Comment: And, indeed, we are not disappointed.

Abolitionists were considered outrageous in their day … and yet.Library of Congress

Copenhagen has altered the political terrain here in the U.S., providing us an opportunity to aim for rapid political change, more dynamic and more hopeful than waiting for a climate Pearl Harbor. COP15 failed by almost any standard, yet the drive by leaders from island and African nations and 350.org to wrench the world’s understanding of climate from a challenge resolvable by incremental steps within present markets and governmental frameworks to the central moral imperative confronting humanity may well have succeeded.

There are many parallels between our present condition and the decades 1830-50, when the then-moribund drive to end slavery became the dominant question before the nation and flash point for the Civil War. Slavery moved from peripheral concern to central matter of national self-definition through singular actions taken by a handful of remarkable individuals.

Negotiation with slaveholders. The monolithic, inextricable nature of slavery stumped every leader from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln, and mainstream anti-slavery advocates, none of whom could envision any exit other than gradual, cooperative measures acceptable to slaveholders, such as voluntary manumission, resettlement of former slaves in Africa or South America, and federal buy-out. Because anti-slavery efforts were deferential to slaveholding states’ interests, they were necessarily long term and in-urgent. Accommodation peaked with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, hailed as the first act by the United States to limit extension of slavery, and embraced by slaveholders because it guaranteed the extension of slavery in new territories below the Mason-Dixon line–a compromise derided by Thomas Jefferson, who observed that “a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated.”

Garrison, the ur-abolitionist.William Lloyd Garrison & abolition. An out of work printer and editor named William Lloyd Garrison stood before an audience of Boston Unitarians and Universalists (the only congregations willing to hear him) on October 15, 1830, and issued the first public call for “immediate, unconditional emancipation, without expatriation,” which, he said, “was the right of every slave and could not be withheld by his master for one hour without sin.” Furthermore, Garrison said, “by holding fellowship with slaveholders,” in their churches, mercantile enterprises, and political parties, New Englanders gave moral sanction to slavery.

Garrison’s words divided anti-slavery forces into two camps: those who, through personal prejudice or pragmatic politics, continued to advocate small steps that might past muster in Congress, and those who rallied to his immoderate call for immediate abolition.

John Brown & Harpers Ferry. Garrison polarized the moral ground, but slavery remained a second-tier concern until John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, in October, 1859, ignited the national furor that led directly to secession, election of Abraham Lincoln, and the Civil War. On May 30, 1880, Frederick Douglass delivered a memorial address, in which he said, “If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery … Until this blow was struck [at Harpers Ferry], the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy, and uncertain. The irrepressible conflict was one of words, votes, and compromises.”

Prolific burning of fossil fuels is no less monolithic, globally, than slavery in the Antebellum South. So too, our organizations and politicians aiming to ameliorate climate change, like anti-slavery advocates, see no alternative but to negotiate with coal and oil interests.

Cap and trade is as disingenuous and fruitless as gradual emancipation, and the Markey/Kerry bill is the moral equivalent of the Missouri Compromise, ostensibly aimed at righting a great wrong, while in substance guaranteeing maintenance of the institution that perpetuates that wrong. The purpose of Markey/Kerry is to ease the minds of those desperate for climate action, even as the extension of coal burning is written into federal law. Its premise is that emancipation from fossil fuels must, perforce, be a gradual undertaking of small steps acceded to by our enemies, with a final accounting made the responsibility of some other generation.

The target of returning below 350 ppm is the critical benchmark defining the problem (with accumulating evidence that “below” is closer to 300 ppm and may require rapid return below pre-industrial 275 ppm), but having already blasted past this mark, 350 ppm alone is ambiguous. How much higher can we safely go? Is 450 ppm an acceptable peak? 550? For how long?

Lacking scientific certainty, we are forced to make judgment calls that amount to playing dice for survival. We stand on no true ground, have no moral compass, and are unable to apply any standard other than ascertaining what we think may be palatable to our enemies.

But Copenhagen clarifies. As environmentalists, we must, and have, acted on behalf of species facing extinction and ecosystems on the road to destruction, but as practical players within a society largely unmoved by such concerns, our central argument must be anthropocentric. We no longer confront speculative injuries remote in time and place; huge populations are on the very brink of catastrophe, with loss of water perhaps the most immediate threat.

Therefore, any act that countenances the extension of fossil fuel burning is wrong. Anything short of immediate and total shutdown of extractions is immoral. That we are all complicit is no justification for acquiescing to evil.

That the violence commences with extractions recognizes the injustice done to local peoples, whether they be in Appalachia or Nigeria; but more profoundly, we must accept that every investment in fossil fuel exploration and each decision to mine or drill is a deliberate, premeditated, and ruthless act.

To say this is to state the obvious. Yet if this is so, and if we continue our rush toward self-induced cataclysm, then why do we continue to treat with the prime authors of our mass suicide?

Look at BP–”Beyond Petroleum”–with its flowery logo and bold vision of transforming energy supplies. BP CEO Tony Hayward caused a stir last year when it was reported that the company planned to sell off its renewable energy division,* but this was a small kerfuffle compared to the overall perspective, in which BP has never deviated from its drive to overtake Exxon-Mobil as the major fossil fuel company in the world.

For two decades now, environmentalists have courted BP (once led by another John Browne). Environmental Defense conducts joint programs, ED and NRDC head up USCAP with BP, and CERES, our environmental voice within the investment world, conferred an award on BP. To what end? In the twelve years since BP first teamed up with ED, BP’s profit has risen from $2.8 billion to $25.5 billion, with the overwhelming bulk of investment going to fossil fuels. Capital expenditures and acquisitions in 2008 alone totaled $30.7 billion, against which BP’s pledge of $1.25 billion annually over 10 years for renewable energy is paltry, even assuming the promise is kept. It may once have been reasonable to try negotiating with BP and others, but no longer.

Time to take a page from John Brown’s book?Something other than dialogue is required. John Brown provided that kick-in-the-pants to complacent anti-slavery efforts by the attempt to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry and ignite a slave rebellion, succeeding in the end in getting two sons and a number of other followers killed, and himself hung. Poorly conceived and without hope of success, the raid and John Brown’s bearing through trial and execution nonetheless galvanized both sides, polarizing and elevating the conflict around slavery.

That Brown’s action was violent and murderous reflected both the author and the times, a thing to be firmly eschewed. Non-violent civil disobedience is the means for direct moral action, as the waves of protest at coal plants, in the mountains of West Virginia, on the Boston Commons and before the offices of organizations that continue to collaborate demonstrates.

Slavery ended in the United States when it did because slaveholders over-reached, but the end of the peculiar institution could not have been avoided. Abolition would have been delayed, however, absent the actions of Garrison and Brown. Time, of course, we do not have, so it is incumbent upon us to take up the same challenge that Garrison made of the citizens of Boston: to examine in what ways our organizations and associations aid and abet the practice of evil; to take direct, non-violent action to halt those practices; and, if we are not so situated, to provide all possible assistance and aid to those in the front lines in West Virginia, Boston, and coal blockades across the nation.

* Hayward quickly retracted the statement, reaffirming BP’s commitment to renewables and carbon emissions reduction, yet the company has taken a number of contrary actions, including recent sale of Indian wind farms, complete withdrawal from the UK renewable sector, and repudiating a pledge to capture and store carbon in natural gas extractions.

That’s worse than I expected, and I expected nothing (though I did hope that 350 ppm would be recognized as the benchmark for global survival). Amidst the ashes of utter failure, what, if anything, can be said in the positive?

I think there are three important things that might conceivably result from collapse of the UN climate negotiations, in terms of U.S. environmentalists’ thinking and conduct.

Acceptance. U.S. environmentalists have been comforted by the thought that small-but-crucial-steps embodied in a U.S. climate bill and COP15 treaty would avert the worst. Spinning is already underway to keep that hope alive, but it will require a whole new level of denial to swallow it, and it may be that truth, miserable as it is, is easier to accept. The painful reality is that nothing we have done to date has altered the world’s trajectory much, and we have passed the point where incremental actions, moderately advanced, might arguably have staved off cataclysm. There is no hope for an easy exit.

Fear. The train of thinking for many U.S. environmentalists has run something like this: “There’s no way Kerry/Markey or anything else we’re working on will do the job, but it’s the best we can do. If we give up on the best we can do, then we will be faced with remaking American politics, transforming our own institution, supplanting consumer/market economy with eco-principles, and so on, all of which are obviously impossible. Therefore, I must keep my nose to the grindstone because the only alternative is to give up.” If, or once, reality is accepted, then the choice is no longer between faint hope and terrifying despair; it is between potentially useful fear and despair. It is the individual, society, or nation (and, perhaps, thoughtful species) with nothing to lose that may attempt big things.

Clarity. The COP15 debacle and a Senate bill based on “renewable energy, clean coal, natural gas and nuclear energy,” according to sponsor John Kerry, are our doing–the direct, linear result of our decisions to downplay climate realities, worry about majority public opinion rather than building a militant minority, negotiate with an intractable opposition, package a global, civilization-busting threat as a domestic opportunity for energy independence and job creation, and so on. As the architects of our strategy themselves admit, we could not have a better political position than where we stood at the beginning of this year, nor could we have chosen better champions than Rep Markey, Sen. Kerry, and President Obama, nor won wider corporate support, than the endorsers of U.S. CAP.

But we lost, and so now it is time to try something else.

JP Green House walk-through from Ken Ward on Vimeo.

Walk through of JP Green House, by Ken Ward, co-founder, and Simon Hare & Declan Keefe of Placetailor, showing materials, design and construction techiques being used, aiming to meet passivhaus standards and meet negative, net carbon impact objective.

More work than anyone imagined — watch a slideshow of the project unfolding.Leise Jones

Our first clue in this regard, uncovered during the first week of ownership, was that the sill plates — hard pine beams resting on the stone foundation on which the building sits — in more than half of the building were termite-ridden. The major structural work of supporting the building, pouring new foundations, and replacing the sills and lower framing was both beyond our own capacity and also precluded occupancy and the piecemeal rehab we planned.

Most anyone who has worked on an old building will nod knowingly in sympathy at our experience of grabbing hold of one problem only to find another, and then another. It’s like tugging on a loose piece of yarn and watching a whole sweater unravel. So to with the JP Green House, but the silver lining that was gradually revealed as we came to understand that no part or system in the 100-year-old, ill-maintained, former corner store could be left in place, was the opportunity to shoot for a truly revolutionary standard of energy efficient rehab.

Between purchase of the property last July and October, the scope of work and scale of our ambitions for the JP Green House were raised from a modest, homeowner conducted spiff-up to a full, down-to-studs demolition job, complete new wiring and plumbing, and, most important, the goal of passivhaus certification. Unlike most energy-efficiency investments, it is very difficult to determine what should be considered additional costs of aiming for passivhaus. Yes, we would have had to attend to the structural problems in the JP Green House under any remodeling plan, but neither would we have needed the massive (for a single family house) buttresses and footings to support thick concrete floors, which will serve as heat sinks, had we not gone down the route we chose. Thankfully, we had patient, expert guidance from a number of highly proficient advisers — particularly Greg Caplan of Living Structures, Inc. in JP, my dad, Harold Ward, recently retired from teaching at Brown University, where he ran the Urban Environmental Laboratory and Environmental Studies Program, and Peg Preble, our neighbor and master electrician. We were also fortunate to connect with the just-founded design/build firm of Placetailor, headed by Simon Hare.

There will be no shortage of work left for Andrée and me. The schedule calls for completion of all rough carpentry, insulation, HRV system and ducting, electrical and plumbing, sufficient to meet Boston building code, by mid-January, with the first passivhaus blower test soon thereafter. This still leaves to us construction of all interior walls, completing kitchen and bath, all finish work, storefront exterior and a few other odds and ends like construction of the deck necessary to access the new front door.

We have had tremendous community support, with too many volunteers to name joining our crew for a few days to full weeks and 20+ turnouts for Saturday work days. We are looking to expand on this support with a contractor “barn raising” week in December, whereby our friends and other interested construction professionals gain hands-on experience with passivahus building techniques, while donating time and expertise to help finish off the project.

The JP Green House is almost entirely an expression of faith — on our own part (Andrée and I are looting our retirement accounts to meet the nut), our families (both of which have given important assistance), and the generous volunteer hours, donations of supplies, tools and appliances of our community. What we have not received, thus far, is any support from federal, state or local “green build” programs, utility “renewable portfolio” funds or private foundation grants (other than an estimated $9k we expect in tax benefits and small rebates).

The JP Green House is a “pure” model, therefore: a demonstration of what may be done without relying on funding sources that are unavailable to all. On the other hand, we will occupy our home and start our JP Green House program work without any reserve or cushion, lacking the solar hot water and pv systems necessary to achieve < zero carbon impact, and with the old strorefront, to be used as community space, passivhaus education and outreach and “hub” for 350.org campaignign, still to be completed. More on this interesting state of affairs in the next post.

For the last year and a half, Ken Ward and Andrée Zaleska have been rehabbing a 100-year-old former neighborhood store in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. They’re converting it into a home for their combined family, a community gathering place, and a zero-carbon demonstration home to inspire others — and sharing their journey in the special series Coming Home: Chronicling the (re)invention of the JP Green House.

The firm overseeing the project, Placetailor, specializes in creating homes on the Passive House model, in which supertight insulation and careful use of passive solar create a building that requires no heating source. The JP Green House will be one of the first Passive House rehabs in the U.S. Photographer Leise Jones has documented the work as it progresses.