Russ Vernon-Jones

love, justice, and climate change … I know you can make a difference.

Author: russvj

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We’re Aiming for the Wrong Climate Targets — Let’s Talk About Improving Our Aim

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Let’s forget about national boundaries and governments for a minute and face the fact that the whole world needs to reduce its collective greenhouse gas emissions. We — meaning all of humanity — need to emit close to 50% less by 2030 (and get to net-zero emissions by 2050). So far global emissions are still rising, so we need to make a dramatic turn in the next few years if we are to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. It’s a global problem — greenhouse gases emitted anywhere, cause problems everywhere.

Responsibility
How are we going to pull this off? Some would argue that each nation should reduce its emissions by roughly 50%. Despite the apparent even-handedness of that approach, it would be incredibly unfair and inequitable. Some nations have emitted far more greenhouse gases than others and played a much larger role in creating the climate problem.

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Hope and Action — Georgia, Climate, and Us

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As soon as Biden and Harris take office there are some positive steps they can take right away with regard to climate change, even while we are dealing with COVID, racism, and the economy. The President- and Vice-President-elect have made some good plans and commitments, and we can build public support/pressure for them to go even further. Winning the two U.S. Senate seats in the run-off election on January 5th in Georgia will make so much more possible, but we can also take heart from what presidential action alone can achieve. Executive orders can be issued by the President in many areas without Congressional approval and can have far-reaching effects.

Georgia now
Many of us are writing letters and postcards, making phone calls, making donations to help the Democratic candidates, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, win the U.S. Senate run-off elections in Georgia. I hope you will find a way to join us. Every little bit helps. These elections will have more impact on what is possible with regard to climate, racial justice, economic recovery, health care and more, in the U.S. than anything else on the horizon right now.

Biden and climate
Meanwhile, now that Biden has been elected, what does that mean for climate action?

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Celebration, Vigilance, and a New Burst of Energy

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We have a President-elect! We have a President-elect who has named four major priorities for his incoming administration: climate change, racial justice, jobs and economic recovery, and COVID-19. We have a Vice President-elect who is a woman of color — a Vice President-elect who co-sponsored the Green New Deal resolution in the U.S. Senate. It’s time to celebrate!

I’m well aware that Trump is refusing to concede, fighting to stay in office, and making moves that are damaging to both our democracy and the incoming Biden-Harris administration. I know not having taken the Senate (yet?) is a major obstacle to progress on all key issues. I’m as upset as you likely are that over 70 million people voted for the lying, climate-destroying, abuser of women, pandemic-exacerbating, white supremacist Donald Trump. I’m clear that Joe Biden’s proposals are not as bold as we need.

Nevertheless, we get to celebrate. We can’t know how messy things will get, and we must remain vigilant, but I think it is most likely that we will get Joe Biden and Kamala Harris into office.

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How to Defeat an Attempted Coup

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We can’t know ahead of time what will happen on Election Day or what will happen in the weeks following. I hope that Biden wins with such a landslide that Trump and his supporters see that they have no choice but to accept the results. However we do need to be prepared for the possibility that Trump meant it when he said he would only accept the results if he wins. If he prevents the votes from being counted or tries to stay in office after losing the election, that’s a coup, an illegal power-grab.

If that happens, everyone who cares about justice, democracy, racial justice and climate change must participate fully in an outpouring of opposition. None of us can “wait and see”. All of us must act.

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Connection — A Balm in Troubled Times

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Do you need a few moments of peace, a balm, a brief rest? I do. I can only put my attention on the election, the likely coup attempt, the rise in coronavirus deaths, violence against Black people, and climate change for so long. Then I need something to revive my spirits. I’ve been finding it in getting outdoors, noticing the natural world, and experiencing a sense of connection to it.

The Indigenous perspective that we are part of the natural world — not separate from it, not rulers over it — but deeply interconnected in the web of life, restores me and heals me when I take even a brief time to immerse myself in it. The song, “We Belong to the Earth,” helps me remember.

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Call It a Coup

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As terrible as the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was, it made one thing perfectly clear. Donald Trump has no intention of conceding the election or yielding power, even if he loses. He explicitly said that the mail-in ballots will make the election fraudulent and refused to agree either to count all the votes or to accept the outcome of the election.

He clearly plans to do everything possible to see that the mail-in ballots are not counted, including taking it to the Supreme Court where he expects to have a solid partisan majority. (It remains to be seen how much he may also use armed forces to intimidate voters on Election Day or to seize mail-in ballots before they are counted on the pretext of safeguarding evidence of fraud.)

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Our Recent Loss

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I have been deeply saddened by the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg/RBG. I’ve found my self struggling with despair and feelings of hopelessness. She was such a force for good in the world and, although imperfect, played such a crucial role in protecting the rights of women, and of all people, for so many decades. The prospect of the current President making another Supreme Court appointment is staggering.

Two days after her death I was committed to participating in a presentation that included both climate disasters and effective climate action. Those of us on the presentation team were forced to pick ourselves up, work together, and present with all the caring and vision we could muster. The presentation was well received. It also had an unintended effect on me. It made me feel more alive again. I wasn’t done with my grief and despair, but I could move again. Connecting with people and sharing a vision helped me re-focus — although we’ve lost RBG, we are called to continue the struggle for justice in which she so nobly fought.

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How to Reduce U.S. Emissions 70%-80% by 2035

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Is it really possible that the United States could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 70% – 80% by 2035? A newly published detailed study of energy sources and needs, production capacity, jobs, and finance from “Rewiring America” says it is. MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, Saul Griffith, and his team have found that not only is it possible technologically, but that the national mobilization required to bring it about would create 15 million to 20 million jobs in the next decade and 5 million permanent jobs after that.

Remarkably, they provide a blueprint of how this could be done using existing technology, including people of all income levels, without requiring outlandish sums from the federal budget, without requiring a sacrifices in our standard of living (more on that another time), with financial benefits for consumers even in the short run, and with improved public health benefits. In a sense, this is the roadmap for how the challenging goals of the Green New Deal can be accomplished, if we can build massive public demand for them.

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Is There Still Time?

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When I was a very young child I loved books and I loved being read to. My mother, or my father when he was available, would read to me at bedtime. It was a brief, happy time each day. It always ended with the announcement that it was time to turn out the light and go to sleep. I couldn’t tell time yet, but each night I knew that time for books was running out. My constant question was, “Is there time? Is there time for one more book?”

Many of us have that question about climate change. Is there still time? Is there still time to reduce emissions, sequester more carbon, and avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming?

There are some bright spots, some big challenges, and some hard realities in the current answer to this question, as I see it.

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A Surprise

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I got a surprise the other day. I came across a reference to the Yale Climate Opinion Maps produced by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. I remembered that I had been intrigued by these maps once before, so I decided to browse a bit and see what I could find. These maps show how Americans’ climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy support vary from place to place.
*Should schools teach about global warming?
*Environmental protection vs. economic growth
*All is not rosy

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Only a Global Green New Deal Will Work

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It will cost the nations of the world roughly $73 trillion to transition to completely renewable energy by 2050, according to a report from Stanford University. The expense will pay for itself in under 7 years. The shift to a zero-carbon global economy will also create 28.6 million more full-time jobs than if nations continued their use of fossil fuels at current levels. After the payback period trillions of dollars will be saved annually.

Only about 10% of the $73 trillion will be required to transition the United States. So that leaves a lot of money that needs to be spent outside the U.S., much of it in poor, developing nations. These nations don’t have the resources to make those investments themselves, but they are critical to stopping global warming.

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Biden, Enthusiasm, and the Future of the World

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Throughout my writing of this blog I’ve been exploring connections between climate change and racial justice. I see them as deeply connected and I’m passionate about both. This post will focus on a connection I’ve not mentioned before — both require that Donald Trump be defeated in the presidential election in the United States this year. The re-election of Trump would be a horrible affirmation of racism and its vicious effects, and would likely doom the entire world to the horrors of runaway catastrophic climate change.

I don’t think we can get through this election season with simply opposing Donald Trump. I think we need to get behind Joe Biden and support and work for his election with our passion, our time, and our money.

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“How to Be an Antiracist”

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I’ve started reading Ibram X. Kendi’s book, “How to Be an Antiracist.” For Kendi, there’s no such thing as “non-racist.” If an idea or policy creates racial inequities or allows them to continue, then it is racist. If an idea or policy produces or sustains greater equity between racial groups then it is antiracist.

Kendi has found that antiracist and racist ideas can exist simultaneously in the mind of any person — White, Black, or any other race, including himself. In his words: “The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next. What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment, determines what—not who—we are.”

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