Inspired by this article from mikeymikey, I wanted to try again with personally writing about the climate. I’ve tried once or twice before to no great effect. Frankly, it’s difficult. And I don’t mean the science side of it. For that you keep up on the professional journals and digest them for a more general audience. This is still difficult in terms of understanding the science and writing well. I don’t mean the science side is EASY. But what I really need is the political context that Kos likes to brag that this site gives us.
Pakalolo is already doing a great job on the science side (As does Meteor Blades) and more people could join them. But honestly, as much as I care about the climate, Pakalolo’s articles don’t grab or inspire me to read them. This is not Pakalolo’s fault. They are well written, researched, and have salient points (those I do read). Yet I check consistently for stories on Ukraine, not climate change. I write stories about Ukraine, not climate change. I’m a bright enough person to read the professional climate journals and help report on them, but I don’t find the inspiration to get me to the next step.
What I want to write about is what we really need, putting the steps into place to mitigate the worst of the climate crisis. Unfortunately I don’t know squat about the underlying levels of political reporting to know where to even begin to write about climate change politics. Other than AOC, Sanders, and the rest of the squad, I couldn’t tell you who backed the Green New Deal. I’m clueless how to keep track of the bills going through state legislatures. I can’t begin to tell you the players in the environmental lobby. At least I hope there are players. Please tell me there are players. Oh sure, I can give you the names I knew as a kid. I had a Greenpeace shirt I wore for the longest time. Now? Does Greenpeace still exist?
Now the general internet response to a post of “I don’t know” is generally “go do your own homework”. Okay, I get it. I will be doing more homework. But we’re talking about the most important issue of ANY generation going back through time. In politics, you don’t build a movement by stomping all over the newbies and telling them to go figure out yourself. You make it as easy as possible for people to vote and support your candidate in any possible way. So do that with me! Help me!
Which brings me to the question of why Daily Kos, which aspires to be the preeminent Progressive website, is so poor on Climate Change. In mikeymikey’s article he cites a response by Kos that Climate Change articles on their own don’t generate traffic the way other topics do. My GOD, are you a political operative or NOT? If your great candidate in a lesser known political race is not getting internet traffic, do you just go and dump the great candidate? No, you work even harder to figure out a way to get that candidate traction in the circles you need to. If something doesn’t work, you try a different way, but you don’t give up.
I’ve already admitted my own lack of focus on reading climate change articles. As Kos put it in one of his response, people don’t want to read what they already know. (and as someone else pointed out “Think they already know”). Which is partially true for me. But not quite. My problem is that reading more about failing Antarctic ice sheets doesn’t help me understand what more I can do.
Write your congress critter! Okay, my congress critter is Jared Huffman and my Senators are from California. Jared’s website already has reasonable support for climate change. Please let me know what I can do more than write letters to someone already on board and give my money (which I don’t have) to environmental PACs.
Where is the news on the Green New Deal? Where is the news on making the next version happen? Where are the people who can tell me which congress critters are on board, and how many more we need? Which “moderate” Democrats need to be primaried to get someone useful on the topic? What are we doing to run campaigns in areas frequently ignored by the Democratic Party? Why aren’t we running a 50 state push to get people talking about climate issues in places few people are talking about them?
We constantly organize around the next election trying to squeak out a slim majority that is only useful for maintaining the status quo. Where are the people working in the red states to bring people around?
Pillory me all you want for my own ignorance on the topic and asking other people to do my work for me. But also look to the Progressive news outfits which need to do better as well. If you want eyeballs for your climate change articles, then write articles that help me better connect to what lots of great people are already doing. I don’t want more articles on Antartica. I want more articles on what we are doing about it, and what more we can do. I want strategy articles on getting together a political coalition. I want strategy articles approaching how to talk about climate change in Purple and Red states. I want articles tracking where whatever the current version of the Green New Deal is. I know it won’t pass with a Republican house and with the Senate we have, but why aren’t we talking about 2024?
It’s no longer enough to talk about getting Democrats elected. We have to talk about getting climate conscious Democrats elected. We also need to talk about better branding. Is there some shorthand for climate conscious politicians I’ve been missing? Can we reframe the conversation from Climate Change with us as passive observers to car accident, to one of positive climate action with us learning how to be emergency responders?
Help me!!!!! Kos, we need you personally to step up. I’m going to keep educating myself the best I can and will write what I can. But you have a large platform of politically motivated people and great writing skills. You can do more with one article than I can with a year of writing. Oh, I’ll still keep writing. I started writing positive, hopeful articles about Ukraine to correct what I saw at the time as unwarranted pessimism (not so much by you and Mark, but I was still trying to swing you two in certain areas). So I’ll state right now I’m going to do my meager best to be a thorn in your side on this issue and move you towards it the best I can.
And if you are writing on it, prove it! And if you’re not writing on it, why not? Is something more important? Sure we can’t do much without Democratic control of congress. But we also showed in 2021 we need the CORRECT Democrats. We know about Manchin and Sinema, but how many were hiding behind their antics? Democratic control is not enough. Climate Responsible Democratic control is the only control that really matters.
So please help. Post in the comments where I’m going wrong. Post good sites to go to about moving things forward. Post ideas of how to make climate issues more prominent on Daily Kos. Don’t like this article and can write a better one? Please go do it! I’ll support you! Give me a heads up when you are going to post and I’ll do my best to find and recommend it. But lets treat this like the political campaign that it truly is. Daily Kos gets fired up over politics. Dealing with climate change IS political! Let’s get fired up!