Having now had a few weeks to digest the experience of the Arctic Expedition for Climate Action, there are many thoughts that have vied for position in this old brain of mine.  What’s clear, personally, is that I learned an enormous amount, not so much about the problem itself but about the essential importance of framing it and making it relevant to a wide and diverse constituency.

It’s interesting that when we first contemplated the idea of a symposium in the Arctic, the focus was more on helping people understand climate change and its implications as a phenomenon.   

Because of “An Inconvenient Truth” and a massive diet of other media, it quickly become clear that convincing people that climate change was a problem was no longer the issue at all.  It morphed entirely into “what are we going to do about it?”  In many ways, the most powerful take-away from our expedition was unanimous agreement that this is the most complicated challenge man has ever faced.

Its implications aren’t hurtling at us like an on-rushing train but, rather, unfolding over time.  Our response mechanisms to such a problem are not well-honed as we’re wired for clear and imminent threats, ones which we tend to connect with specific people, such as Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. 

As Daniel Gilbert wrote in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times on July 2, 2006, “Global warming isn’t trying to kill us, and that’s a shame.  If climate change had been visited on us by a brutal dictator or an evil empire, the war on warming would be this nation’s top priority.”

It’s also become increasingly more apparent to all of us on board that climate change was really not and should not be characterized as an environmental issue primarily, but more as a national or international security threat; that issues far higher in our priority list would be significantly exacerbated as climate change unfolds – health, poverty, justice, jobs, immigration, prosperity in general. 

It also became clear that not nearly enough emphasis is being placed on the opportunity of addressing climate change – how a wider, greater focus on environmental health could unleash massive forces of innovation, technology and create a whole new array of good, high-wage jobs.

And so, I see several major themes coming out of the expedition that I believe could change the conversation and spur action. 

1. Ensure that climate change is inexorably linked with environmental health as a whole, including freshwater resources, forests, marine ecosystems, etc.

2. Define clearly that human prosperity is totally dependent on these natural systems and that further imbalance will create a global security threat increasing poverty, worsening health standards, diminishing job creation and exploding the ranks of economic refugees around the world.

3. Agree that this is an issue where national borders have no place, that poor policies on the part of countries will not result in the damage residing within those borders.

4. Appreciate that the opportunity of harnessing clean, abundant, renewable energy is possible and profitable; that it is exciting and that it will ignite massive investment and job creation. And, as a by-product, we’ll all get to breathe easier.

Of course, none of this will matter if we don’t learn how to better communicate, how to make the issue(s) relevant to people obsessed by $4 a gallon gas prices and the first generation faced with passing on a less prosperous future to their children.  So communicate we must, and we are far from doing it well. 

And, finally, a very specific thought.  Beijing has shut down much of its industry and kept cars off the street in order to look better (and perhaps avoid killing athletes by pollution) for the Olympics.  It’s a massive effort with the presumed intent to go right back to business as usual once the flame is extinguished.  I wonder how Beijing’s citizenry will react after having had a small break where they, too, could breathe easier.