Russ Vernon-Jones

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

Talking climate

Blog FEATURED 

Winning Hearts and Minds in the Battle Against Authoritarianism

russvj 3 Comments , ,

Many of us are wondering how we can be most effective in blocking authoritarianism from completely taking over the United States now that Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are about to assume political power. This is not an easy question, but it’s an important one. I’m sure that we will need to join with others and keep thinking about it and trying things throughout the coming months and years.

First, I want to express my deep gratitude to everyone who supported the Kamala Harris campaign. We didn’t win the election, but we did enough that we prevented Trump from winning a landslide and limited him to less than 50% of the vote. This will make a significant difference in our efforts to prevent the rise of fascism over the next four years. Whether you made a donation, wrote postcards or letters, called voters in other states, went door to door, or helped in some other way, thank you!

The MAGA Republicans will have great political power, will do unconscionable harm to our collective health and safety, and will undermine equity and justice at every turn. Despite our best efforts they will frequently succeed in eliminating regulations, enacting policies, and passing legislation that benefit their wealthy supporters at the expense of the rest of us.

However, full-blown authoritarianism also requires capturing the minds of a majority of the population. They have not yet done this and this is where we can struggle and win.

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

No Mandate for Extremism: Debunking Lies in the Trump Era

russvj 4 Comments ,

A great many of us in the U.S. are distraught about Trump winning election to the presidency. We watch with some horror as he proceeds with his plans to undermine the rule of law, deport immigrants, target LGBQT+ people, use the government for his personal revenge and financial gain, eliminate many health and safety protections, and make the ultra rich even richer and more powerful. We know that it will be important for us to not be silent or complicit, but many of us don’t know what to do in this moment in history.

Here is a suggestion that I hope can be useful to you. They are based on my reading others’ analyses and recommendations, listening to webinars, and talking with friends.

Implanting myths and lies in the minds of the public
One of the techniques used by aspiring dictators, and currently by the MAGA Republicans, is to plant key myths or lies in the public consciousness that seem to justify their extreme actions to come. They are currently ….

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Protecting What We Love

russvj 4 Comments , ,

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.

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Extreme Heat, Possibilities, and a Recent Action

russvj 3 Comments , ,

At the beginning of April, I wrote about record-breaking heat in Rio de Janeiro and in Africa. This week the news is about an intense heat wave in south and east Asia. The temperature in Bangkok, Thailand was over 104°F. Bangladesh has had 23 “heat-wave days” in April, with temperatures surpassing 108°F (42°C0 in some areas. The heat forced schools for 33 million children to close. Schools in India and the Philippines have also been closed because of extreme heat. In Myanmar the temperature reached 113°F.

I find these temperatures mind-boggling. It’s hard to imagine people carrying on their lives.

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

“The New Denialism” – What’s That?

russvj 9 Comments ,

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:

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Stop New Methane Gas Exports Now – CP2 and 20 others

russvj 2 Comments ,

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 ….

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Changing the Language of Climate Change

russvj 9 Comments

It’s getting easier and easier to have conversations about the climate crisis. More people than ever are concerned about it; the media are covering it more; and the U.S. government has approved billions of dollars to fund solutions. Having these conversations is more important than ever. There are still widespread misconceptions that are slowing down efforts to solve the crisis. The public demand for action does not yet match the magnitude of the crisis we are in. The fossil fuel industry and its political lackeys are still trying to slow the transition to renewable energy.

Writing in Scientific American, Susan Joy Hassol, says “The words we use and the stories we tell matter. Transforming the way we talk about climate change can engage people and build the political will needed to implement policies strong enough to confront the crisis with the urgency required.”

Let’s start with the word “natural.” The fossil fuel industry likes to refer to one of its major products as “natural gas.” This makes it sound healthy and good. It’s actually “methane gas,” a poisonous substance that ….

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

How to Talk About Climate Change

russvj 2 Comments

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.

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Stories From COP27

russvj 3 Comments ,

The nations of the world just met in Egypt at the UN climate conference, COP27, for over two weeks to try to come to agreements on addressing the global climate crisis. It was a particularly contentious conference, with agreements hard to come by, and negotiations continuing past the planned end date.

Coming into the conference the delegates found encouragement in the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, who has pledged to eliminate the deforestation of the Amazon, and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States, the largest climate bill ever, with billions of dollars for renewable energy. On the other hand, the urgency of the crisis has been brought into sharp focus by the flooding of one-third of Pakistan (the 5th most populous country in the world); recent flooding in Nigeria which displaced 1.4 million people; and lethal drought, famine and heat waves in many parts of the world.

At the opening session of the COP UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres noted that global greenhouse gas emissions keep growing and that global temperatures keep rising. He said,
“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

People Need to Hear About Climate a Lot More Often – Let’s Talk About It

russvj 7 Comments

I’ve written often about the importance of our talking with people about climate change. While polls show that more people are worried about climate change, it is not yet a major salient issue for most people. Jessica Lu and John Marshall, of the Potential Energy coalition, write that we need to talk about climate a lot more often. Their study of the data shows that “frequency of exposure strongly predicts growth in climate supporters.”

Polls show that less than 15% of the population talks about climate often and roughly 75% of people report that they hear other people talk about it less than once a month. Lu and Marshall write that people are simply not hearing about climate often enough. “Based on the data, our best guess is that the average person needs to see and hear about climate at least 80 times a month — potentially even more — to become an active supporter of significant climate action.”

What’s most effective for us to say?

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Worth Remembering from 2021

russvj 2 Comments ,

If you are reading this, you are one of the people who has survived another challenging year. Congratulations! Thank you for your continued caring about climate change and climate justice.

What a year it has been! The coronavirus pandemic is hard on all of us and seems endless. Our democracy in the United States is in peril. The climate crisis continues to worsen–some good actions have been taken, but they are still woefully in adequate.

President Biden has been far bolder on climate than anyone would have guessed when he first announced that he would run for President, but he’s also failed to take essential climate action steps that are within his power.

There’s been plenty of bad climate news this year and some good news too. I’m going to trust that you have some picture of how dire the situation is and not trouble you with reviewing the bad news in this post. Here are three bits of good news that are helping me stay hopeful–and committed to climate action in the coming year.

Also here are the five posts of this blog in 2021 that contain perspectives and information most likely to be important in 2022.

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Spice Up Your Talking About Climate – a Number for Each Day of the Week

russvj 3 Comments

As I’ve written before, talking about climate change is critical to building a powerful people’s climate movement. Lots of people are vaguely concerned about the climate, but many of those aren’t yet speaking up or taking action. It would be good for us to talk about climate change with almost everyone. Sharing our love for the planet, sharing some information about climate change, and inviting people to join us in taking action, is vital to moving things forward. Having some key facts at our fingertips, committed to memory, can make us better communicators and enliven our interactions. Once I’ve chosen a number to remember, I find I retain it better if I make a point of sharing it often in conversations.

Here is a small collection of key numbers and facts you can use when talking with people about climate change.

Read more