Russ Vernon-Jones

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

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News Items – Troubling and Encouraging

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Some recent climate news items seem particularly noteworthy. I’ll start with some bad news, but I promise some encouraging items in the remainder of this post.

For thousands of years prior to the Industrial Revolution, the atmosphere held about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. (From studying air bubbles in ancient ice scientists have determined that for most of the last 800,000 years carbon dioxide levels were even lower than that.) Once humans started burning fossil fuels at the beginning of the industrial age, the carbon dioxide level started rising. The news item is that in May the global level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a new dangerous high–50% higher than the pre-industrial level.

This undesirable benchmark is particularly problematic because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 1,000 years or more. Worse yet, the average rate of increase is faster than ever. Carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere are the primary cause of climate change and all its harmful effects.

Also in May, the International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a landmark report. The IEA has traditionally ….

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A Conversation with Isioma

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Last week, through the wonders of Zoom, I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Isioma, a Black woman in Lagos, Nigeria. She told me that the rains that traditionally fall reliably at this time of year in her country are not falling and that disaster looms for farmers and cattle herders. She said that because of drought many grazing lands have been exhausted. Conflicts are arising as herders seeking dwindling reserves of pasture clash with farmers and each other. She shared her sadness that so many Nigerians have been made homeless by the effects climate change. She called them “refugees within their own country.”

I’ve read about these things in news reports, but it was a new experience for me to be sitting in comfort in my home in the United States developing a friendship with this woman, while she was in Nigeria experiencing climate disaster firsthand. I began to think about the fact that my country, the United States, has played a big role in causing the suffering being experienced around her. Cumulatively the U.S. has emitted more climate-change-causing greenhouse gases than any other nation.

Just as I was pondering the responsibility of the U.S., she said to me, “I don’t think we can stop climate change without doing something about racism. The wealthy white nations don’t care what happens to us. It’s racism that makes them not care.” Even though I’ve made similar statements myself, it cut right to my core to hear it directly from her. I’m still shaken by it.

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Nurturing Hope

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Hope is essential for climate action. Some activists may be motivated by fear, anger, or even grief, but without hope it is virtually impossible to sustain an effective, active commitment to stopping climate change. What does it mean to be hopeful when people around the world are already suffering and dying from the catastrophic effects of climate change? What does it mean to be hopeful when despite all the marches, speeches, scientific reports, and goal setting, damaging global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising at an accelerating rate and deadly feedback loops are being triggered?

What is hope? Hope is not a conviction or prediction that things will turn out well. It is possible to be hopeful even when the odds are not in your favor.

Hope is a decision. Hope is a decision to hold open the possibility of success regardless of the odds. Hope is a choice. Hope is deciding that you would rather join with others and go for what you want, than give up and resign yourself to failure or inevitable doom. When it comes to tackling climate change, hope is a decision that you will have a better life and experience greater integrity and sense of purpose if you work together with others to try to solve the crisis than if you turn away from the issue or declare the battle lost.

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Voting Rights Are a Climate and Race Issue

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Voting rights have been a racial justice issue in the United States for a very long time. Now voting rights are also a climate issue. In fact, the whole world is probably facing irreversible climate catastrophe if we don’t protect voting rights in the U.S.

Why? Because the Republican party, which opposes climate action, is seeking to take power permanently by suppressing the voting rights of people likely to support the Democratic party. Only with the Democrats holding power do we have any chance of the United States taking the many steps that are needed to address the climate emergency. The U.S. is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases and has a tremendous impact on the world’s efforts to stabilize the climate. Without the U.S. fully engaged in climate action, the world probably can’t succeed in solving the climate crisis.

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Fossil Fuel Racism

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We now have a new report authored jointly by Greenpeace, the Movement for Black Lives, and the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy that brings climate and race issues together in a new way and coins the term, “Fossil Fuel Racism.” They found that coal, oil, and gas, at every stage of their lifecycles–extraction, processing, transport, and combustion–generate toxic air and water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. At each stage they create public health hazards. At each stage they worsen the climate crisis. Both their public health effects and the effects of climate change fall disproportionately on Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian and poor communities.

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Feedback Loops: Greta Thunberg Asks Us to “Educate Ourselves”

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When Greta Thunberg addressed world leaders at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019 she mentioned “feedback loops” as something most people were not taking into account. In January of this year, she and the Dali Lama had a public conversation online with some leading scientists to promote the launch of a series of five new short videos, “Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops.” These were created by a documentary film company collaborating with top-flight scientists, and are narrated by Richard Gere.

Thunberg said, “If I could ask one thing of you, it would be to educate yourself…spread that knowledge, spread the awareness to others…. Most people I know haven’t even heard of feedback loops or tipping points, chain reactions, and so on. But they are so crucial to understanding how the world works.”

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Doughnut Economics

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In my previous post I raised the issue of “living lightly on the earth” — inviting us to think about our levels of consumption and what lifestyles are sustainable on a planet with 7.8 billion other humans. We will each need to make our own decisions about what a sensible and workable lifestyle is for us. As a society, we also need to think about a more sustainable and equitable economic system — what should be its goals and how can we bring it into being?

As I wrote last time, I’m intrigued by what I’ve learned so far about “Doughnut Economics.” First, there are no glazed or cream-filled pastries here — just an intriguing doughnut-shaped diagram that summarizes some important ideas. I believe we can all think about the most important issues facing our society. The “doughnut” approach provides us with an accessible entry point to some interesting and relevant perspectives on economic systems.

Kate Raworth, the creator of this way of thinking about things, says that “a healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow. …

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Living Lightly on the Earth

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I like the creature comforts of my middle class lifestyle. At the same time I believe in global equity. I’m sure that I’m using more than my fair share of the world’s resources and that the planet could not accommodate 7.8 billion people consuming as much as my neighbors and I do.

I’ve written about many climate action steps we can take — many of which won’t require much change in our lifestyles. Today I want to invite you (and me) to consider the almost certain reality that solving the climate crisis will require reduced consumption and reduced energy use by most of us in the so-called “developed” nations.

So many of us have been conditioned to believe that more is better, that it can be challenging for us to think in this area. I’m hardly an expert. Rather than trying to provide answers, I’d like to share three experiences….

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Plastics – Another Front in the Campaign to Save Our Climate and Health

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Globally, we produce about 310 million tons of plastic each year, about half of which is single use items such as shopping bags, plates, cups, straws, and packaging. Total production is expected to go up to somewhere between 750 million tons to a billion tons per year by 2050, unless big changes occur.

Plastic is made from fossil fuels. Greenhouse gasses are emitted at every stage of its lifecycle. The emissions begin with methane that’s emitted in the extraction of fracked oil and gas and continue …

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5 Reasons We Might Succeed

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Joe Biden and his new Administration have been taking excellent steps on climate very quickly. It’s very hopeful. At the same time, the magnitude of what must be done to prevent the worst effects of climate change is still staggering. It cannot be accomplished without major legislation, both federal and state. Massive public support demanding bold action on all fronts is needed to give us even a chance of success. We aren’t there yet.

In December I wrote a post about the need to raise our climate targets to meet our international responsibilities. One of my readers, agreeing with my view, but despairing of getting sufficient support for needed actions, summed up her feelings with, “Aaargghhh!” She led me to write today’s post — some reasons to believe we can succeed.

The views of the public continue to move more and more in support of climate action.

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Can Joy and Realism About the Future Co-exist in Our Minds?

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The day before Joe Biden was inaugurated President, a friend of mine said to me in passing, “I’m so happy and excited that he’s going to get us back into the Paris Climate Accords right away!”

I have another friend who worked hard to get Biden elected. The day Biden was declared the winner, she shifted to bemoaning the fact that he isn’t more radical than he is, and focusing all her energy on where we need to push him to take bolder action on both climate and race.

Both?
I could identify with both of my friends — feel both the joy of first one and the upset of the other. But I don’t want to choose between being happy about what a difference Biden’s election will make, and being upset about the fact that his policies are still not adequate to meet the crises we face. Can’t I have both happiness in the moment and a sense of purpose and determination about the challenges ahead?

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7 Brief Perspectives in a Difficult Time

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Here are some assorted thoughts — from the Presidential election to the Senate runoff elections in Georgia to the insurrection at the Capitol and beyond.

United front
In my mind the biggest story of the last few months is that so many people and groups came together around getting Trump out of the White House and taking back the Senate and we were successful! We formed a “united front” — people who disagreed with each other about many things, worked together and supported each other in a common goal. A united front may be more difficult to achieve on other issues, but it will be necessary in the future and it is possible.

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Retrospective – December 2020

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Season’s greetings to all!

Congratulations to each of you for having made it through 2020! My deepest sympathy and condolences to all of you who have lost loved ones this year. There has been so much death, hardship, and loss. No one would have chosen to have such a year. Nonetheless, I do think that we have learned much about our capacity to persevere, to adapt, to care, and to come through it all still wanting justice, still wanting a society that works for everyone. We have a clearer picture of both the challenges we face as a society and the strengths we embody when we pull together.

Rather than write a new blog post for this week, I thought I would simply invite you to look at parts of this website that you may have ….

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