With all the flooding in Florida...

You'd think Rick Scott and Marco Rubio would get a clue.

At least Rick Scott met with some scientists.

More memes...

In case you would like even MORE of my pesky #peoplesclimate memes... here are a couple additional pix!

The little brick building with the flag in front of it is the Senior Center in Charles City, Iowa, where my mother lives.  They may have voted for crazy lady Joni Ernst for Senate - but Iowans still don't deserve to suffer from runaway climate change.  ;-)

US & China Sign Historic Climate Change Deal!

Thanks, once again, to President Obama!  This is a potentially HUGE deal, and I am going to spend a big part of today reading up on precisely what's included - and not included.  I'm starting with the piece on Slate.com, here.

But I'm worried, on so many levels.

The announcement that China will be producing 20% of its energy from clean sources by 2030 seems too good to be true.

It also seems to be too little, too late.

And there are no enforcement mechanisms built into the agreement, which seems perilous, given the wave of GOP legislators set to descend on Washington and do their darnedest to block the President's every move.

John Kerry wrote an op ed in the New York Times opining about how the US and China are "encouraging other countries to put forward their own ambitious emissions reduction targets soon and to overcome traditional divisions so we can conclude a strong global climate agreement in 2015."

Again, worried.  Seems possible that, instead, other nations may stand back and say, "You go, Big Guys!  We'll see how it goes and act later."  Or perhaps, "You go, Big Guys!  That should solve the problem, and we won't have to reduce our measly little emissions!"

Global climate negotiations start up again in mid-December, in Peru, and then it's on to Le Bourget in 2015.

And then?

I have my fingers crossed, but honestly, my hopes aren't high.  And we have a big fight ahead of us, to hold our legislators' collective feet to the fire (Exhibit A: Jim Inhofe)and make sure something actually happens!

Otherwise, it's all just so much hot air.

Meme-o-mania!

Another day, another set of climate change memes...

Polar bears, penguins and pie charts...

Have got to go.

As a communications strategy they are swiftly diminishing in utility. Which is a polite way of saying - they're no longer working! 

I recently read that, over the past 6 years, the number of Americans who "believe" in climate change has actually gone down. Yet many in the climate change activism community continue to blog and tweet and talk about the same old things. Here a pie chart, there a graph, there a picture of a (robustly fluffy) polar bear cub on a crumbling ice floe.

These things speak to me. If you're reading this post, they likely speak to you, too. But it's becoming more and more apparent that they've grabbed all the market share they can - and we need some new communications tools in our toolbox!

We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to topics of conversation, because climate change is affecting everything!

So let's ditch the wildlife - or at least reduce the mentions - and focus on people. We can talk about taxes - food security - insurance prices - the lives of firefighters and other first responders - food prices - disease - kids - the mysterious die-off of moose in the great northern woods - real estate in Florida - crumbling infrastructure in the midst of ever wilder weather - tornado alley becoming tornado boulevard - chocolate and coffee - climate change refugees - ticks moving north (see "moose die-off, above) - farmers - gardeners - bees - hunting - fishing - our national parks... Truly, the list is pretty much endless.

Awwww.... SO CUTE!

So consider giving the polar bear and penguin pics a rest. Trust that the evidence backs you up, WITHOUT having to brandish a graph or pie chart every time you speak about climate change!

It's real - it's here - it's flucking gripping - and we need to reach out and grab people's hearts and emotions as well as their minds by telling them the story of how the things that they love are in imminent peril.

The "opposition" has no compunction about using nakedly manipulative language, and they don't have truth on their side. We have the truth on our side. It shouldn't be hard to communicate effectively and change minds. We just need to switch up tactics - and soon.