Russ Vernon-Jones

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

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Not giving up on the climate

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The election of Donald Trump is catastrophic in so many ways.  It will mean untold suffering for many people and for our country as a whole. It will also  be disastrous for the global climate crisis.

We are at a moment in history when the entire world needs to come together to reduce, and then eliminate, greenhouse gas emissions. What a time for the most powerful country in the world to elect a leader who calls climate change “a hoax.”

Trump has said that he will ….

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Beyond Election Day

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I’m writing to you just before Election Day. By the time you get this and read it, we may, or may not, know more about the election results. In any case, I’ve been thinking about what perspectives may be helpful to us as we go through these tumultuous times.

The struggle against fascism will need to continue, regardless of whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris becomes the next president. One of our two major parties, supported by nearly half of all voters, has virtually no attachment to the truth and little attachment to democracy. The Republican party has been captured by those who favor authoritarianism, white Christian nationalism, and a government that primarily benefits the wealthy and will make the climate crisis much worse.

How this could have happened is an important question and many analysts are writing about it. Right now, I’m more concerned with the fact that it has happened, and how we  find our way forward in this new situation.

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To Progressives Who Are Not Supporting Kamala

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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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Good News on Clean Air – If …

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When we think about the climate crisis our minds often, quite rightly, go to how greenhouse gas emissions are causing the global temperature to rise, causing catastrophic storms, floods, fires, and hunger. We sometimes forget that burning fossil fuels is also the primary cause of global air pollution and its horrendous effects on health and mortality.

In 2021 more than 8 million deaths worldwide were attributed to air pollution. That’s roughly one out of every 8 deaths caused by air pollution. New studies show that about 61% of these are attributable to pollution caused by fossil fuels. That means that air pollution from fossil fuels kills close to 5 million people a year globally. Of course, the number of people suffering from asthma and other respiratory diseases caused by air pollution is much greater than that.

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Worst Debt Crisis in History

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One of the major obstacles to solving the global climate crisis is the extreme debt crisis in much of the Global South. Just when the whole world needs nations in the Global South to participate in addressing the climate crisis, many of these nations are hobbled by impossibly high levels of debt.

The Pope’s message to a recent debt crisis meeting was reportedly, “The world’s poorest countries are being crushed by unmanageable debt and richer nations need to do more to help.”

This is more than a debt and climate crisis, of course. This is a crisis in health, education, and basic living standards, too. Across 144 developing countries, debt service is absorbing an average of 41.5% of government revenues. In the first quarter of this year in Nigeria, servicing the national debt consumed 74% of all federal government revenue. How can any nation function under such circumstances?

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It’s time to start ending all fossil fuel production

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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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The Ethanol Boondoggle

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There are more than 250 million cars and light trucks that run on gasoline on the roads in the U.S. Every time a driver of one of those cars stops for fuel, what they pump into their tank is, by law, about 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol.

Ethanol is made primarily by grinding corn and then fermenting it. Corn is the largest crop in the U.S. Each year farmers plant roughly 90 million acres in corn–growing almost 14 billion bushels. Thirty percent of the U.S. corn crop goes into making ethanol for fueling vehicles.

In a sense, this is a form of solar power. Through photosynthesis the corn plant captures the sun’s energy and turns it into corn. However, it’s a ridiculously inefficient way to capture the sun’s energy for our use in transportation.

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American Climate Corps: The CCC Reborn

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Last month, the first 9,000 members of the new American Climate Corps were sworn in and started work. This federal program is designed to train young people and engage them in new government-funded jobs in the clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience sectors. It’s modeled on the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that FDR created as part of the New Deal in the 1930’s. I’ve been a supporter of this new Corps since it was first proposed back in 2020.

When I heard that one of my longtime favorite authors, the widely heralded Barbara Kingsolver, had written the pledge that the new Corps members would recite in their swearing-in ceremony, I was intrigued. The text of the pledge touched and charmed me. I wrote this post especially to share the pledge with you.

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Protecting What We Love

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In my previous post, “You Are Not Alone”, I mentioned two studies that recently found that most of the world’s population clearly wants governments to take action to address the climate crisis. This is significant and worth remembering.

In this post I’m going to share some of the very interesting details from one of those reports, “Later is Too Late.” from Potential Energy. These marketing and communications experts surveyed nearly 60,000 people across 23 different countries (which contain 70% of the world’s population). They report four principal findings, each of which I’ll outline below.

ONE: The world is united in wanting climate action
They found that “On average across the 23 countries in the study, 78% of people agree with the statement, ‘It is essential that our government does whatever it takes to limit the effects of climate change,’ and just over 10% disagree.” The statement was supported by a majority in every country surveyed, with support ranging from 56% in Norway to 93% in China.

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You are not alone

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It is easy to feel overwhelmed and alone in the face of the climate crisis. I know I struggle with those feelings all too often. However, I’m sure we are less alone with this crisis than we think. Reality is different from what our feelings often tell us. There are huge numbers of people with us in this struggle. Below I will share with you some newly reported information about how widespread support for climate action is throughout the world.

However, in order to let this information deeply inform our perspective, I think there are two other essential issues to consider. The first is that we live in a society that emphasizes individualism. Being self-reliant and able to handle things on our own is highly valued. But knowing that we need other people and prioritizing being part of a group tends to be less admired.

Capitalism is built on our being individualistic and having weak group orientations. Wealthy elites and right wingers find ….

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Who is benefiting: Neo-colonialism and climate finance

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It has recently been reported that in 2022 the wealthy nations finally met their commitment to provide $100 billion per year in climate finance to the nations of the Global South. This might appear to be cause for celebration, but there is a not-so-pretty side to this story as well.

In 2009 the wealthy countries agreed that by 2020 they would provide the less wealthy nations with $100 billion per year to support climate action. That goal was reaffirmed in the Paris agreement in 2015. There are two major reasons for this aid to go from the wealthy Global North nations to the lower-income Global South nations.
1. The climate crisis has primarily been caused by the emissions of the wealthy nations while the major burden of its effects have been borne by the lower-income nations. This aid is essentially payment for having harmed the Global South nations. It is a debt owed by the Global North nations. (The wealthy nations have never agreed to put this rationale in writing, but the moral obligation is clear.)
2. Humanity will not be able to solve the climate crisis unless….

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“Startlement” by Ada Limón

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Just as I was preparing to write my blog post for this week, something I was reading mentioned that the Fifth National Climate Assessment from the United States government, which was published in December 2023, was introduced by a poem. Although I don’t read poetry regularly, I was intrigued and looked it up. The poem, titled “Startlement” was written by the Poet Laureate of the U.S., Ada Limón.

I found the poem quite moving. I long for us all to be fully alive, fully human, and fully connected to the earth and to each other. When we can manage it, I think this is also the surest foundation for meaningful climate action. So instead of writing a new post this week, I offer you “Startlement,” by Ada Limón.

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