The Only Path to Climate Success?

Good news abounds on the climate front. More solar and wind power is being installed all over the world. The international financial industry is slowly but surely withdrawing support for fossil fuel projects. The President of the U.S. is aiming for net-zero carbon emissions from the electric grid by 2035 and is moving legislation forward to support climate action.

Yet the overall picture with our climate is still quite dire and getting worse.

Seven things you can do to make a difference.

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To Progressives Who Are Not Supporting Kamala

Millions of people in the U.S. are ready to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. They are pleased that we have an opportunity to elect a woman president. They see Kamala’s policies on climate, democracy, social policies as vastly preferable to Trump’s. They are very pleased that we have a viable alternative to the nightmare that would result from having Trump become president a second time. Many are working hard to get Kamala elected. They value Kamala’s commitment to bringing people together and the joy and caring she communicates.

Other voters, including a number of progressives, are having trouble getting behind Kamala. They are deeply upset by her support of President Biden’s policy of continuing to provide arms to Israel while the Israeli army is brutally killing Palestinians and now other Arabs. Some see it as unforgivable that she didn’t invite a Palestinian speaker to address the Democratic National Convention. Others feel betrayed by her withdrawing her previous support for banning fracking, and failure to prioritize climate action.

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It’s time to start ending all fossil fuel production

Over the years I have written many posts about the climate crisis and about climate justice — good news, bad news, goals, new technologies, activists’ successes, and the depth of the crisis. Today I want to state explicitly what must happen if we are to keep much of our planet inhabitable for human beings and other species. We must end the extraction of oil, gas, and coal everywhere in the world.

Despite all of humanity’s successes in developing and deploying renewable energy, in conserving energy and increasing energy efficiency, and in making a majority of the global population aware that global warming is real and a major problem, fossil fuel production has continued to rise (as the chart above illustrates). While there are many aspects to the climate crisis, the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming. It is emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that are causing deadly heat waves around the world, catastrophic storms and flooding, agriculture-destroying droughts, and rising sea levels.

If we are to resolve the climate crisis, we must remove from the face of the earth one of the biggest, most profitable industries of all time–the fossil fuel industry. This is no small task, of course. But I think we must be honest with ourselves that this is what must happen. Nothing else will suffice. As big a task as this is, I believe we can succeed.

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Carrots and Sticks

There has been some discussion of carrots and sticks in our nation’s climate policy. Why? What’s at stake here and why does it matter?

The metaphor apparently goes back more than a century to a cartoon that portrayed a race between two donkey riders– one encouraging his steed forward by dangling a carrot in front of it, while the other whipped his animal on the flank with a stick. It general it refers to motivating human behavior by providing incentives and rewards (carrots), or by threats, punishment, or other negative consequences (sticks). A “carrot and stick” approach generally refers to applying both at the same time.

What does this have to do with climate policy? It’s relevant, for instance, if a state wants to get its electric utility companies to provide more electricity from clean, renewable sources and less generated by burning fossil fuels. The state might provide tax rebates, subsidies, or other financial incentives (carrots) for providing more clean energy, or it might impose a tax on fossil fuel use or pass laws requiring utilities to provide an increasing percentage of green electricity each year (sticks).

This is a key issue in how the federal government in the U.S. is trying to deal with the climate crisis. The original Build Back Better climate bill that the Biden Administration proposed in 2021 had a healthy mix of carrots and sticks.

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“The New Denialism” – What’s That?

For many years one of the biggest obstacles to the United States taking meaningful climate action was widespread climate denial. PR campaigns, often funded by the fossil fuel industry, promoted the idea that climate change was not actually happening, and if it was, it was not caused by human activity. These campaigns were remarkably successful in creating widespread doubt about climate change. The Republican Party in the United States became the only major political party in the democratic world denying the legitimacy of climate science.

More recently, as the effects of climate change around the world and in the U.S. have become more extreme and obvious, outright denial of the existence of climate change has decreased. Polling of public beliefs in 2023 shows 72% of adults in the U.S. believe that climate change is happening. Polling shows 62% of the public in the U.S. thinks Congress should do more to address global warming.

In response, the advocates of climate denial have not gone silent, they have simply shifted their tactics to what is being termed, “New Denialism.” A recent report shows this new denialism is growing on social media and having an impact, especially on younger people.

The new tactics of the climate deniers focus in three major claims:

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Climate Activists and Small Nations Making a Difference in Their Nations and at COP28

I’ve been excited to learn recently about three different powerful climate activist campaigns, two of which have led to actions at COP28. As I write this it’s too early to know what the COP itself will produce, but so far much of the news seems to indicate that we have not yet built a sufficiently powerful climate movement, either in the U.S. or globally, to derail the power of the fossil fuel industry and its accomplices.

Here’s some good news. A month ago I wrote to you about a vital campaign to stop the climate-destroying expansion of LNG export terminals along the Gulf Coast in the U.S. This campaign is growing. In late November activists delivered more than 200,000 petition signatures to the Department of Energy calling for the Biden Administration to halt any permit approvals for new LNG terminals. At the behest of Third Act, elders are writing thousands of hand-written letters. Young influencers are using TikTok and Instagram to spread the word.

The Biden Administration has made no announcements about any change in policy, but they’ve indicated privately that they are seriously studying their response to this uproar. If you haven’t signed the petition yet, please join in on what has become an international protest and sign the petition. It’s at www.bit.ly/NoNewLNG. Organizers are now seeking a million signatures. (Note: The count you will see on the signing website includes only a fraction of the signatures so far.)

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Stop New Methane Gas Exports Now – CP2 and 20 others

Eight years ago in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the nations of the world set a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. They agreed that every nation, and especially the wealthiest ones, would contribute to reducing climate damaging emissions.

Since then many people, businesses, climate organizations, and governments around the world have worked to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, reduce the use of fossil fuels, preserve forests, and generally reduce our collective carbon footprint. In the United States we’ve had some modest success. Since 2005 our polluting emissions have fallen 20%. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is accelerating our progress with significant incentives for transitioning to renewable energy.

However, while we’ve been making progress on domestic emissions, something horrible has been happening in the U.S. that is having a huge global impact–worsening the climate crisis with deadly effects on people all over the world. Since 2015 the U.S. has gone from exporting no oil and virtually no LNG (liquefied “natural” methane gas) to becoming the largest driller and exporter of gas and oil in the world! The increased emissions from the gas and oil we export are so great that they exceed all the reductions we’ve achieved in our domestic greenhouse gas emissions since 2005.

One effect has been to ….

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What Climate “Doomers” Get Wrong

Before I mention anything else, I want to acknowledge the horrors of the war in Israel and Gaza. I believe that every human life is precious. I’m deeply grieved by what is happening there, as well as in other wars around the world. Regardless of your political views, I want to invite you to join me in seeking to keep our hearts open toward both Palestinians and Israeli Jews and the suffering and loss they are experiencing. Each of us can contribute to reaching for greater human unity– an essential part of humanity successfully addressing both warfare and climate change.

Turning to climate change, 10 years ago climate denial was still common and a major obstacle to widespread public engagement with the issue. Outright climate denial is now relatively rare. I would say that climate discouragement is a bigger obstacle today. I’ve run into quite a few folks who admit that they are too discouraged to get involved in climate action. It’s natural for any of us to feel discouraged at times, but to let your discouragement keep you from engaging in climate action is to be part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

Some folks believe that it’s simply too late and we are all doomed. A survey of 10,000 young people from 10 different countries found that more than half of them said that humanity is doomed. So when I encountered an interview with distinguished climate scientist Michael Mann with “what ‘doomers’ get wrong” in the title, I was eager for his answer.

He describes doomism as the view that we lack agency– that “It’s too late to prevent catastrophic, runaway warming and the extinction of all life.” He says, “There are a lot of people who think the science supports this view, but it doesn’t.”

He insists that we can and must have both agency and urgency. “The impacts of climate change, no doubt, constitute an existential threat if we fail to act,” Mann concludes.” But we can act. Our fragile moment can still be preserved.”

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I Don’t Like Bad News

I don’t like bad news. I don’t like reading that July 3, 4, and 6 each set a new record for the hottest average global temperature on Earth, for as long as records have been kept and, according to scientists’ best estimates, the hottest day in the last 125,000 years.

I don’t like reading that parts of China are suffering under a prolonged heat wave with temperatures up to 110° F; that 1.8 million Muslims on the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia encountered 118°F temperatures; or that scientists are alarmed at the “totally unprecedented” heat wave in the waters of the North Atlantic–melting sea ice and disrupting important currents.

I don’t like reading that wealthy nations and corporations blocked significant progress at the June UN climate session in Bonn, Germany that was designed to prepare proposals for the next big UN climate conference, COP 28, this coming December. “The Bonn Climate Conference laid bare the glaring hypocrisy of wealthy nations, showcasing a remarkable indifference to the struggles of developing countries,” said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network, which includes more than 1,500 civil society groups.

So, what do we do with bad climate news? I think it is important that we all develop workable approaches to this situation. We are certainly going to encounter plenty more bad news about the climate crisis in the months and years ahead. We don’t want ….

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Stacey Abrams, Rewiring America, and Climate Justice

I admire Stacey Abrams and the way she and her colleagues registered 800,000 new voters in Georgia prior to the 2020 election, securing a win for Joe Biden, and putting Rafael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the U.S. Senate. I’ve also had a lot of respect for Rewiring America, a non-profit formed in 2020 to “help mobilize America to address climate change and jump-start the economy by electrifying everything.” So when I read that Stacey Abrams has just joined Rewiring America as their lead counsel and will lead their outreach to individuals and communities, it really caught my attention.

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How to Talk About Climate Change

I recently asked some friends what they found hard about starting conversations about climate change. One said they just didn’t know how to begin. Others said they were afraid they’d get asked a question they didn’t know how to answer, or feared triggering a disagreement, or they just didn’t know how to react when people were hopeless.

I recognized all of these as difficulties I’ve had in various situations. However, the experts say it’s really important that we talk about climate a lot. “The first step to action on climate change is to talk about it, that’s the number one thing we can do,” said Lucky Tran, who’s in climate communications at Columbia University. “We can’t solve any problems, especially at the global scale, if we don’t talk about the problem and the best way to address it.” This will be key to building a movement large enough to insist on action on the scale that is needed.

We used to think that the goal in communicating about climate was to convince people that climate change is real and caused by humans. That’s no longer necessary with most people. Polls show that a huge majority of people in the country understand that climate change is happening and are concerned about it. Our big job now is to make the topic more salient, let people know they are not alone with their concern, and enable people to express their desire for bolder climate action.

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