This is our third Q&A with our advisor, Bill McKibben. Last time I spoke with Bill, he was in China participating in a teleconference for the G8 meetings in Japan. Now he and a teammate from 350.org are meeting with groups from all parts of China that are doing their own organizing to raise awareness and build a movement to fight climate change. The hope is that 350.org can unify all of these actions into one large global movement!

If you have a question for Bill, send it along to askbill AT brighterplanet DOT com. We’re eager to hear from you!

I read “The End of Nature” to prepare for an Environmental Ethics class I was helping teach at San Francisco State. One major concept I drew upon from the book is the idea that there is a 50-year lag from the “global warming” effects we are feeling from excess carbon, so that even if we stopped dead in our tracks (as if that were possible) we can expect dire consequences from what we have already done. Is that assessment still true today or has it accelerated or changed in some other way?

Russel Kilday-Hicks

Thank you, Russell. Your understanding is, sadly, correct. We’re not going to “stop global warming”. We’ve already warmed the planet a degree, and there’s another degree and a half in the pipeline from carbon we’ve already emitted. What we’re talking about now is just trying to prevent absolute catastrophe from crossing the real tipping points–check out 350.org for the latest science.

I am very concerned about what’s happening to bee colonies with colony collapse disorder (CCD). I’m sure you’ve heard the quote that was attributed to Einstein: “No more bees, no more pollination…no more men!” Do you think this CCD phenomenon - which could threaten our agricultural base (and is now also affecting bats, our beloved mosquito-eaters) is related to climate change?

Emily Fano, Holistic Moms Network

Climate seems to be one part of the equation here, but there are also pesticides implicated, and the general folly of treating bees as industrialized workers, shipping them across the continent every month. The answer here is clear, I think, we need a sustained, steady move in the direction of low-input local agriculture. Which means, among other things, that we need more farmers!

Thank you for all your efforts on behalf of climate change. I am trying to make a difference in my own community and hope to be as bold as you have been. Like many people, I feel great despair over the impending future of our planet and what it will mean to the natural world, including the human race. I fear for my children and their children. What is the thought that you keep in your mind, to give you hope?

Julie Buck, Castle Rock, CO

Julie, thanks for that question. I find that action is the best antidote to despair, for young people as well as old. The inspiring pleasure of organizing a couple of thousand demonstrations across the country at StepItUp, and now of trying to do the same thing globally at 350.org, keeps me from fixating on the darker possibilities. I’m not convinced we’ll win in the end (I did, after all, write a book with the cheery title “The End of Nature”), but I am convinced that we can put up a fight, and that that’s important, and that if we do there’s a chance we’ll have some real effect.