Hi everyone:

I am promoting an initiative to craft a position statement from CACOR on Climate Change.  I've already been working with some key members (of diverse opinions) to refine some wording.  We want to get it to the point where the statement has impact, but is also something that most (if not all) CACOR members can fully support.

The next step is to open it up for some general feedback.  Please share your thoughts on any of the nine parts given below:.

Thanks for your input!

CACOR Statement on Climate Change - 2025

1.      CACOR accepts that our [current global warming crisis] is primarily [due to] the excessive burning of fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, and natural gas) globally.  Secondary significant factors include excessive and unsustainable agriculture (such as livestock and rice cultivation), deforestation, and greenhouse gas by-products from concrete and steel construction.  <Edited>

2.      CACOR believes that such activities (the excessive burning of fossil fuels, and the secondary factors listed above) are direct results of an economic paradigm that demands impossible constant growth and overconsumption.  The crisis-causing activities are therefore symptoms of a far more complex systemic problem.  Addressing just symptoms will not address the problem.

3.      CACOR accepts that climate change is only one of multiple threats to human well-being – threats that include freshwater withdrawals, toxic chemical pollution, land conversion, Nitrogen/Phosphorus loading, biodiversity loss, etc. – collectively known as ecological overshoot.

4.      CACOR believes that the dominance of the human population across the entire planet poses a serious threat to the continuance of other species and the availability of critical resources.  Our growing numbers are obviously a factor in ecological overshoot.  Still, a more immediate concern is our chosen standard of living, and the increasing disparity between the richest and the poorest people.  The total present human economic activity on the planet far exceeds that which would be required to meet the basic human needs of every living person, and yet many live without those needs being met.

5.      CACOR believes that[, setting aside] the current human population level[,] all of the components of ecological overshoot and biosphere destruction can be directly attributed to the flawed economic paradigm that now demands constant growth and overconsumption.  In other words, so long as civilization is based on the principle that more is always better, and fails to implement models based on sufficiency and degrowth (among other value changes), the prospects for humanity’s future will get worse.  <Edited>

6.      CACOR believes that, other than reducing detrimental extraction effects, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources will not significantly reduce the threats from all the other non-atmospheric components of ecological overshoot.  In fact, attempting such replacement at scale might worsen chemical pollution, land conversion, biodiversity loss, etc.

7.      CACOR understands and does not disparage the motivations of those who just demand the reduction of the burning of fossil fuels, but also accepts that such reductions will be resisted by powerful entities in proportion to the benefit they derive from that practice.

8.      CACOR believes that global warming has already created a need for environmental justice, whereby populations who benefited most from behaviours that caused this crisis owe an obligation to vulnerable populations most seriously suffering its impacts.

9.      CACOR concludes that it is strategically ineffective to attempt to take action against the impacts of climate change, or even to address causal factors (such as the excessive burning of fossil fuels globally), without primarily focusing on overconsumption (i.e. the economic paradigm that drives all of ecological overshoot).

[A copy of the above statements is attached as a Word Document.]

Stating that population is a given is a cop out. Fertility is crashing globally from a combination of women's empowerment and negative feedback from an increasingly toxic environment. If CACOR would loudly support women's empowerment globally, it might help reduce a major driver of Climate Change (Global Warming), and could reduce the impact of negative feedback as fewer births would likely occur.

This is a good start. CACOR must not overlook the major effects of climate change and environmental exposures on human health, longevity, and quality of life. In addition, the fact that there are rising climate change induced catastrophic events such as fires, flooding etc. has a major impact on the ability of those affected or potentially affected to be able to recoup losses through insurance claims. In addition, those areas affected are often contributing to the supply chain, thus ultimately affecting us.  The effect of plastics, forever chemicals and a host of other toxins also needs to be taken into consideration in terms of how best to create a healthy climate with sustainability and continued biodiversity.

Richard van der Jagt, MD, FRCP

These are all excellent points, David!  I'll share what I can for each one below...

David Dougherty wrote:

Firstly, CACOR is an organization.  It cannot hold views and beliefs or have understanding.  Only its members can do that.

Secondly, for this to go forward, I think it will require unanimous consent/agreement from current members.

Yes, both of these are valid thoughts.  The plan is for the membership to be surveyed with some sort of Strongly Agree - to - Strongly Disagree poll (with a comment option) for each of the 9 parts.  Given the nature of our group, will we ever get unanimous consent on each and every word from each and every member?  Probably not.  However, the planned process will be at least as good as the CACOR Vision, Mission, and Strategic Plan processes, so I think with care, the results could be considered valid.

Thirdly, there ought to be at least one point about a way forward, not just whinging about the mess in which we find ourselves.  That's why I said a few years ago that we need a companion document to the Plan to Survive.  That new document ought to deal with the very different world we have created where people are going to have to live differently, not just survive a couple of days without electricity or heat.  No-one was interested.

Yep, you're right.  We need an action plan.  However, I think we can all agree that the first step in proposing actions is to make sure that everyone is on board with defining the problem.

Still, you say that there should be at least one point about a way forward.  I think number 9 qualifies, since it proposes a primary focus which is not the one recognized by many activists.

Fourthly, the word ought to be much shorter, but there should be references to bona fide sources of factual information about climate change.

The statement started out a bit shorter.  Its expansion is due to the feedback from various CACOR members.  (No surprise there.)  We want the statement to be as succinct but as comprehensive as possible.  If you have edit suggestions, please share them.

It was also specifically designed to avoid making claims that required significant substantiation.  This was one of the reasons that the verbs (accepts and believes) were carefully chosen to indicate that our members are well-read on this topic, and have come to these conclusion through vast expertise.  However, there's no reason why we can't offer up a supporting list of references.  Again, it would be helpful if you could identify claims that should be supported by other sources.

Lastly, why would we want to produce such a statement?  That is not even mentioned!

I hope it is becoming clearer that, unless we have a relatively common starting point, CACOR will continue to spin its wheels on actual action and advocacy.  Instead, we will continue to have one-off op-eds or initiatives from a few motivated individuals, which remain unsupported by CACOR as a collective and end up having far less impact.

Determining the common CACOR values and positions is also the number one item in our Strategic Plan!  ;-)

Thanks again for your valued feedback.  We need lots of that (and fast) to get this initiative moving!  :-)