“One of the positives [that’s come out of the recent United Nations Climate Summit] is that it shows that, under the current circumstances, within current systems, we won’t be able to solve the climate crisis unless there is massive pressure from the outside.”

Greta Thunberg

“Massive pressure from the outside” is what seems needed to even attempt to solve the myriad problems facing our country and world today. But science demonstrates that there is no problem more pressing than climate change, and at the moment, we aren’t doing much about it.

For a cheery start to the new year, I thought I’d cull some light readings on climate change and what real action some people are taking to avert it, and conversely, highlight those who are not only ignoring the problem, but perpetuating it for whatever future generations there might be.

The reason it’s not a particularly bleak topic to me is the inspiring work of activists like Greta Thunberg, who at 15 sparked world-wide climate change awareness by staging a solo school strike in front of the Swedish parliament.

— This interview with Ms. Thunberg in the Washington Post Magazine is as inspiring as it gets.

“Right now, what’s holding us back is that we lack that political will. We don’t prioritize the climate today. Our goal is not to lower emissions. Our goal is to find solutions that allow us to continue life [as it is] today.”

Can we say that again? “…we lack the political will”.

— What Ms. Thunberg says in the interview above segues nicely with this trailer for the recently released film, “Don’t Look Up”, a dark satire on how we’re dealing with the climate crisis via a “comet hurtling toward Earth” metaphor.

It’s true. No one is listening.

— Ms. Thunberg also calls out the idea of elected officials and others paying “lip service” to the climate crisis, but either ignoring the issue or making it worse.

See this CNN piece on Senator Joe Manchin’s evisceration of the Build Back Better bill’s climate change provisions designed to, gasp, reduce America’s use of fossil fuel.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/19/politics/climate-change-manchin-what-matters/index.html

“The current proposal he killed would have paid utilities for moving more quickly away from fossil fuels. Manchin opposes moving more quickly away from fossil fuels since he says the US is already moving away from fossil fuels….'The transition's already happening,’ Manchin told CNN, although he would not comment on a story about coal and West Virginia. ‘So I'm not going to sit back and let anyone accelerate whatever the market's changes are doing.’ "

So how are those natural, unobstructed market changes working out for everyone?

Finally for this evening, I’ll leave you with an article by Bill McKibben, a leader in the climate change movement and founder of 350.org., a nonprofit dedicated to the swift transition to renewable energy. This piece was written for The Guardian in the fall of last year, right before the United Nations Climate Summit in Glasgow.

According to McKibben, there are two major reasons to be hopeful about the climate crisis:

“One is the astonishing fall in the cost of renewable energy. The other is the huge growth in the citizens’ movements demanding action.”

I’m hoping these citizens’ movements equate to the “massive pressure from the outside” that Thunberg says is necessary to change our trajectory.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/15/climate-crisis-cop26-bill-mckibben

Additional Reading

According to aPolitical, this is a list of the 100 most influencial people in climate policy today:

https://apolitical.co/lists/most-influential-climate-100/

I’d love to hear what you think about the climate crisis, our attempts to address it, and anything else you’d like to chat about.

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