“pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will” —Antonio Gramsci, 1920
That describes where I’m at on the climate crisis. Now, it would be easy to get into a long-winded tangle over what the Italian communist really meant with those words and how they’ve been used and allegedly misused in the century since they were written, but that’s definitely not the point now. Regardless of its deeper meanings, the plain text resonates for me.
On climate, I am pessimistic about the facts. The physics of the matter. The politics of the matter. The little time left to us to do something with any possibility of preventing, mitigating, or adapting to at least some of the myriad dire impacts imposed by our reckless spew of greenhouse gases. The immense clout of the political forces arrayed against us because needed change dings their bottom line. Bill McKibben’s short essay about COP26 tends to reinforce this pessimism of the facts.
But, just like his, my heart remains hopeful. I see the fierce activism of courageous and justifiably worried young people pushing hard on climate issues and for reform of a host of other matters that need a new way of doing things because the old ones don’t work so well anymore, if they ever did. I think they and their allies will do all they can to make good policy happen because they know that every minute truly serious climate action continues being postponed means far more draconian measures will be needed to shield us from the worst future impacts, assuming we can be shielded after so many delays. I think they have the optimism of will required to stay persistent and relentless in the face of great odds, in the face of those pessimistic facts.
But if there’s one thing certain to kill the impetus to change things, the spirit for sticking with the struggle for the long haul, it’s despair. Despair creates apathy, and apathy kills activism. Despair encourages inaction. Despair is highly contagious. Despair makes the merely probable unescapable.
It’s not my place to tell anyone they shouldn’t despair over the climate crisis. Everyone has a unique threshold for how much bad news they can absorb before surrendering to hopelessness. Believe me, I get it. After decades of reading, writing, and activism on environment and climate-related issues, I’m all too thoroughly acquainted with the list of grim current and future climatic effects from what we humans are doing with our behavior. I’ve lamented with friends the bleak scenario David Wallace-Wells painted in The Uninhabitable Earth. Over the years, I’ve read scores of calm but scary peer-reviewed papers and thousands of articles on climate and climate politics. You don’t emerge from that with a pollyanna smile.
I know about tipping points, melting permafrost, melting glaciers, melting ice sheets, and Atlantic circulation slowdown. The high likelihood of cascading catastrophes in the near term isn’t imaginary. Extinction of many cities from sea-level rise and of a substantial fraction of Earth’s animal species from other effects appears to be “baked into” the levels of greenhouse gases we’ve already released into the atmosphere. Time is so very short for altering our current trajectory away from some of the worst impacts of those catastrophes. But greed and oligarchy have used their immense influence and wealth to stop any such alteration with tactics both dirty and ruthless. Too few leaders with the political clout to redirect our trajectory have yet to emerge. This remains true even as we speed ever closer to that 2030 date by which scientists say we must have altered direction to have the necessary ameliorative effect later this century. We are on the brink. Turning away from it, if we can, will take unprecedented global cooperation and collaboration. “Daunting” scarcely covers it.
This week, Tom BK Goldtooth, the charismatic leader of an Indigenous grassroots movement who is participating with other activists at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow called carbon offsetting “part of a system that privatizes the air that we breathe.” One of the founders of the 31-year-old Indigenous Environmental Network and co-producer of the award-winning documentary Drumbeat For Mother Earth, Goldtooth, who is Diné (Navajo) and Dakota, told The Independent newspaper that offsetting ”allows polluters to buy and sell permits to pollute instead of cutting emissions at the source. It lets governments and corporations pretend they are doing something about climate change, when they are not. In our traditional knowledge we know that we cannot own the sky, we cannot trade Mother Earth in a market system.”
In an interview at the COP26 summit with Democracy Now! Goldtooth said:
Well, Bill [McKibben] said something about a lot of the team players at the corporate and the country level having their war game plans. And this is what we’ve seen as Indigenous peoples for these 26 years. I’ve been coming to these COPs since the fourth, COP number four. And, you know, it’s a continuing war against Mother Earth, against Father Sky. The violence that’s perpetuated with the continuation of the dumping of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, greenhouse gases, carbon, it’s insane. The bathtub’s overflowing. It has to stop. Our Indigenous delegation that’s here and the ones that are still coming here, we’re saying, “Hey, you know, this has got to stop,” for our communities, our Indigenous nations and communities from the United States.
Over the years, Goldtooth has been recognized with numerous awards for his achievements as an activist for social change within the Indigenous, environmental, and climate justice movements. In 2010, the Sierra Club and the NAACP named him a “Green Hero of Color.” In 2015, he received the 2015 Gandhi Award. As the Sierra Club noted when it presented him with the 2016 John Muir Award, “From the strength of his community organizing and leadership experience he has brought the local issues of environmental, economic, energy, climate, water and food justice and the rights of Indigenous peoples and rights of Mother Earth to the national and international levels.”
Republicans’ solution to climate change includes making it easier to burn more fossil fuels:
The plan, led by Cramer and Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), would aim to reduce global emissions 40 percent by 2050 compared to current levels. It would involve expanding natural gas, nuclear power and carbon capture, building out critical minerals supply chains and reforming the National Environmental Policy Act — all ideas Republicans have supported for years.
Still, the announcement was notable. It’s the first time Republicans have articulated a specific greenhouse gas reduction target for 2050, and it offered the GOP another opportunity to blast high gas prices, climate envoy John Kerry’s private jet and the Green New Deal.
But it’s not a goal that would avoid the worst impacts of climate change. A net-zero pathway, which scientists say is crucial to hold temperature rises under 2 degrees Celsius and avoid devastating environmental and economic impacts, would necessitate energy and industrial carbon emissions falling 40 percent by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. It would also require a 75 percent reduction in emissions of methane — a byproduct of natural gas.
QUICK HITS
• Here’s a breakdown of major climate pledges made at COP26 so far: The Glasgow summit is seen as "the last, best hope for securing the global commitments needed to get countries on track to avoid potentially catastrophic levels of climate change during the next several decades," reports Andrew Freedman at Axios.
• It’s time to freak out about methane emissions: This highly potent greenhouse gas will make or break a “decisive decade” for climate change, writes Rebecca Leber at Vox.
• New report expects global emissions of CO2 to rebound to pre-pandemic high this year: Coal use is resurging, particularly in China and India, pushing emissions toward the all-time high, despite the Covid-driven drop in oil consumption, reports Nicholas Kusnetz at Inside Climate News.
• Landmark Agreements at COP26 Put Nails in Coal’s Coffin: At least 25 countries agreed to end public subsidies for overseas oil and gas development, and more than 23 have committed to ending coal altogether, by Tina Gerhardt at The Nation.
• New York rejects two new gas power plants as ‘inconsistent’ with climate law: The decision marks a milestone in an ongoing debate over the role of natural gas in net-zero plans by Emily Pontecorvo at Grist.
• Climate Change Is Killing My Old Summer Job: I was a corn detasseler as a teenager. But increasingly weird weather patterns are making the timing of this crucial task harder and harder to predict, by Julian Epp at The New Republic.
CLIMATE QUOTE
“The most important thing we’ve discovered is the magnitude of our ignorance. At least now we know what we don’t know. We have a glimpse.” —oceanographer and explorer Sylvia Earle
CLIMATE TWEET
CLIMATE ACTION
The Indigenous Environment Network was founded in 1990 by grassroots Native peoples and individuals to address issues of environmental and economic justice. The network focuses on building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to protect sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities. IEN accomplishes this by maintaining an informational clearinghouse, organizing campaigns and direct actions, and building public awareness to spur alliances among Indigenous communities, tribes, inter-tribal, and Indigenous organizations, people-of-color/ethnic organizations, faith-based and women groups, youth, labor, environmental organizations, and others.
Climate Action Network (CAN) is a global network of civil society organizations in over 130 countries driving collective and sustainable action to fight the climate crisis and to achieve social and racial justice. CAN convenes and coordinates civil society at the U.N. climate talks and other international forums.
CLIMATE RESOURCES
Oil Change International is a 16-year-old data-driven research, communications, and advocacy organization who 20-member team is focused on exposing the actual costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
Re/Alliance is a coalition of field practitioners, policy makers, educators, community leaders, and humanitarian and development workers who share skills and experience to expand the influence and impact of regenerative development. The coalition focuses on “affected communities first” and seeks to ensure that its work directly benefits people experiencing disaster and displacement, the surrounding communities, and the natural environment in which the work is done.
C40 Cities International’s activist global professionals offer their technical, managerial, policy, and communications expertise with megacity governments to drive measurable and sustainable climate action through collaboration and knowledge sharing. New York City, Johannesburg, Sydney, Tokyo, London, and Mexico City are among the cities on the C40’s list that have committed to the climate targets established in the Paris Agreement.
CLIMATE BRIEFS FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS
• Climate Brief: Music 4 Climate Justice — A Musical Menu for Today From Glasgow, by WarrenS
• Climate Brief: Using IPCC to quantify greenhouse gas emission reductions, by billlaurelMD
• Climate Brief: COP26. Renewables and Climate Finance Not Keeping Pace, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: Earth Matters: Unmet emissions pledges imperil planet; many local eco-advocates elected on Tuesday, by Meteor Blades
• Climate Brief Cop26: COP26-can it avert Climate catastrophe? & Biden's Climate policy Won, by Angmar
• Climate Brief: COP26 Live Now. It's All About the Money, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: The fossil fuel and border surveillance industry work together to prioritize brutality and suffering, by Pakalolo
• Climate Brief: Cop26 News Roundup, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Climate Brief: Live @ COP26; Biden says "we want to be able to breathe," by boatsie
• Climate Brief: Climate Brief: News Roundup, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Climate Brief: COP26 News Roundup,COP26: 'Moment of truth' as world meets for climate summit, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Ambition is not enough - Paris promised a 1.5 C world, Glasgow needs to deliver, by Pakalolo
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, COP26: African Youth Voices You Need to Follow, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Now that Germans are at risk of drowning, we are all balancing in the same lifeboat, by citisven
• Climate Brief: What we do and do not know about the Meridional Overturning Circulation, by billlaurelMD
• Climate Brief: Earth Matters: Climate reporting improves; wolf protectors; Bullard eco-justice center lures donors, by Meteor Blades
• Climate Brief: The private sector rushes in to destroy the coal industry since COP26 won't, by Pakalolo
• Climate Brief: Manchin Mopping the Floor With Biden's Climate Agenda, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: News Roundup, UN: Greenhouse gas levels hit a new record, cuts fall short, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Climate Change & The Built Environment, by boatsie
• Climate Brief: 75% of Americans say Climate Change is Happening 59% it's Very or Extremely Important, by Lefty Coaster
• Climate Brief Cop26: What Will Success Look Like in Glasgow? by Angmar
• Climate Brief: Climate Brief: Economic collapse is bearing down on us, by Pakalolo
• Climate Brief: Climate Brief: News Roundup, Local activists in long battle to stop oil drilling on Isle of Wight, by eeff
• Climate Brief: Pentagon calls warming nat'l defense worry; Ga. nukes startup delayed; EV sales soar, by Meteor Blades
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The writers in Climate Brief work to keep the Daily Kos community informed and engaged with breaking news about the climate crisis around the world while providing inspiring stories of environmental heroes, opportunities for direct engagement, and perspectives on the intersection of climate activism with spirituality, politics, and the arts.