Good News

Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

I’ve been feeling very glum of late, so I thought it a good time to share at least a smidgen of good news–Maryland passed what’s been described as “sweeping climate legislation” into law. Our Republican governor grumbled about the bill’s economic impact and did not sign it (he is hedging his political bets, clearly) but he declined to veto it, allowing the bill to become law without his signature.

Of course it got watered down in the process. Of course it doesn’t go far enough. But it appears to be a real step in the right direction as it requires a substantial reduction in the state’s carbon emissions within the next eight years.

Now we’ve got to get the Federal government to do the same.

Do Me a Favor?

Actually, it’s not exactly a favor, more like a good idea, but “please do me a favor” sounds better–and as long as it gets done, that’s the main thing.

Climate protests have not been making the news–at least not the news programs I’ve been watching. The only reason I know there are any protests is that I read the newsletter of Extinction Rebellion, a publication written primarily in the UK. I don’t like having to go to British journalists in order to find out what’s going on in New York. And, worse, the lack of coverage makes it seem as though nobody really cares about the climate crisis–when in fact there are a lot of people who care enough they are willing to risk arrest.

It’s not that American news media needs to cover every single protest–many are small and in other countries–but when there is a coordinated wave of “actions” across multiple countries or when there is something big in our country, that’s news. It should be treated as such.

Extinction Rebellion is the one I know about because I get their newsletter, but the Sunrise Movement does similar work in the US. Sometimes there are events organized by other groups, too. But we don’t hear about them.

So we feel alone and we look inconsequential.

This is where you come in.

I’m going to contact the news programs and news papers that I follow and tell them to please cover these types of events. You do it too. Whatever news source you watch, listen to, or read regularly, has it been covering Extinction Rebellion and similar groups? If it has not been, send in an email and ask for coverage of these stories. Ask your friends to do the same.

Be clear that the story is not “some wacky eco-terrorists are causing trouble.” That would be counterproductive–and untrue. Extinction Rebellion is not eco-terrorism. It’s street theater without a permit, mostly. Sometimes it’s minor vandalism (paint splashed about and so forth). Sometimes it’s civil disobedience. We don’t need news media to editorialize in Extinction Rebellion’s favor (it may be better if they don’t, if doing so would trigger required coverage of “the opposing view”), but we need to demand they not engage in covert editorializing against it, either, through the use of misleading reporting.

We want the facts: what are these people doing, why are they doing it, and what do they want?

What to Do, Exactly

It’s pretty simple: go to the Extinction Rebellion website and look through the archives of their newsletter (I linked the the relevant page above) and see if you can find suitably news-worthy events that are relatively recent and were not covered by your favorite news source. If you do, go to the website of said news source and look for contact information. Use that contact information to ask for the missing coverage.

Do the same for any other environmentalist organization that you think may be holding news-worthy events that don’t make the news.

Writing political scripts is not really my thing, but if you need an idea of what to say, try this as your starting point:

“Hi, I’ve noticed that you didn’t cover [recent newsworthy event], and that you typically don’t cover climate change protests. You really need to. I depend on you to tell me what’s going on in the world, and the fact that climate action is really important to these people is important to know. In the future, please cover these kinds of stories. I want to know why they are doing this and what they want. Thank you!”

Be polite and respectful.

Repeat as necessary.

And while you’re at it, let me know what news sources you find that aren’t covering these stories–maybe you’ve identified different culprits than I have, in which case I can use your information to contact your news sources also.

Thanks!

Bad Week

Hello.

For reasons I don’t entirely understand, I’ve been unable to get online the past few days, hence my silence. I’m trying to catch up, so this will be short.

I’ve been thinking about climate politics of late, and it seems clear to me that we are in very real danger of the Republicans re-taking Congress and, ultimately, the White House without first passing legally-binding climate action. If that happens, our narrow window in which we can avert various kinds of catastrophe will close before the political wind can shift again. Everything and everyone you care about will suffer accordingly in various ways I really hope I don’t have to enumerate.

I really hope all of you are doing something about this. Something real. Something big. If not, it’s time to start.

Conundrum

Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash

Today I face a conundrum; the past few weeks have been important for climate news, yet I lack the time or focus to write a long, well-researched article. Among other problems, I need to spend several hours today driving (not my favorite activity, as you can imagine).

So I’ll give you the headlines, in case you missed them, and maybe go into more depth next week.

Unless something else blows up and needs to be discussed.

Heat Wave in Antarctica

In the middle of March, parts of Antarctica hit ten degrees, Fahrenheit–which, at this time of year, is 70 degrees above normal for the area. The warm spell was part of an “atmospheric river,” a particular type of storm (in this case, snowstorm) that isn’t unusual in Antarctica, but this one more intense than typical and extended farther inland. Apparently, it’s not clear whether this weather event is one of the things made more likely by climate change–there’s a lot we don’t know about Antarctic weather, so it’s possible this sort of thing just happens there occasionally–but it’s weird.

Heat Wave in the Arctic

Meanwhile, it was 50 degrees above normal in parts of the Arctic circle. Again, freaky.

France Froze

For the second year in a row, Europe had a very mild late winter followed by a spring cold-snap. The big problem here is that the mild temperatures convinced many plants to break dormancy, making them vulnerable to the cold. Fruit trees and grape vines are especially hard-hit by these sorts of things. A cold snap after the buds open can cause total crop failure for the year. France is especially hard-hit this time around. And unlike the Antarctic heat wave, where we really don’t know much, there’s strong evidence that “false springs” due to mild winters are going to get a lot more common because of climate change.

Note that the problem here isn’t cold weather–it’s warm weather at the wrong time, before winter is really done.

Climate Action Now, Says UN

New UN announcement about the direness of our situation. What has to happen to get climate action through the American Congress? It must happen now.