Some climate hawks are disappointed that the climate crisis only got 15 minutes of prime time at the Democratic National Convention and just a single phrase in Kamala Harris’s nomination acceptance speech. The general sentiment among movement veterans, however, is a hopeful and patient wait-and-see for the details of her plans.
In a statement Friday morning after the Democratic National Convention, Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for Fossil Free Media and a spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay Campaign, said: “Let’s be clear: the most important climate policy right now is defeating Donald Trump in November. All the wonky policy details in the world won’t matter if climate deniers control the White House. What we’re seeing at this convention is Democrats united in their commitment to climate action, understanding its importance to a majority of voters, especially core Democratic constituencies.”
Working toward that defeat of Trump spurred a coalition of environmental groups to announce on Monday a $55 million advertising campaign in support of Harris. The group’s first three ads don’t specifically mention climate change and focus on the economy instead. That seems to mesh with the lack of explicit climate references in Harris’s recent stump speeches and in all but three, short, main- stage DNC speeches.
Stevie O’Hanlon, spokeswoman for the Sunrise Movement, the 7-year-old, youth-led climate group, called for a more direct approach, telling Maxine Joselow at The Washington Post: “There is a big opportunity to lean into talking about climate change more. It is one of the clearest areas of contrast between Harris and Trump. And it is a winning message, especially for young voters.” Harris should want to control the narrative, O’Hanlon said. “If she’s not putting out her own message about what she stands for on climate, then Republicans and Big Oil are going to define her position for her. So I think there’s a huge political downside to not speaking out and defining what she actually believes.”
While climate issues didn’t get as much main-stage time as activists would have liked, as Sierra Club CEO Ben Jealous said should have been the case, there were climate-related side events with heavy hitters in attendance. Among these were three hours of Environmental & Climate Crisis Council meetings that included progressives like Reps. Ro Khanna of California, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Maxwell Frost of Florida, and Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
At one of those sessions, Harris’s chief climate adviser Ike Irby said, “Vice President Harris and Gov. Tim Walz are committed to bold action to build a clean energy economy, to create good jobs, ensure America’s energy security, reduce emissions, protect public health, support communities in the face of climate disasters, and hold polluters accountable.” They will build “upon this promise,” he added.
There was a lot of talk at these and other council meetings about current and future benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act passed two years ago this month. A new analysis from the Global Strategy Group shared at the meetings concluded that “Voters love ‘clean energy jobs’,” while “ ’Big Oil CEOs’ or ‘corporate polluters’ are our best foil.”
But in the climate speakers’ cameo appearances on the main stage at the DNC, even working-class journalist John Russell didn’t mention the Inflation Reduction Act by name. A video clip that was shown of Harris delivering the tie-breaking vote in the Senate included praise for the “Democrats’ epic clean energy investments” without IRA being named. These omissions apparently weren’t unintentional omissions.
While there’s no disagreement among Democrats about how important the IRA legislation is, there’s considerable to-and-fro on how to talk about it as a climate message. For instance, in an interview with Emma Dumain at the paywalled E&E News, Rep. Nikki Budzinski of Illinois said praising the IRA by name won’t have the hoped-for effect:
“A lot of my constituents … probably don’t know what the inflation Reduction Act is. That’s kind of D.C. jargon, right? But when you localize it and you talk about projects that are happening in the district, jobs that are being created … [they] get it.”
That mirrored the August recess messaging “toolkit” released by staff of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, of which Budzinski serves as the chair of the clean jobs task force.
One of its topline recommendations was not to ever mention the IRA by name, arguing that acronyms were not effective communications strategies.
Fellow Illinois Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois said, “In any room, there is a climate message that breaks through. If you’re concerned about inflation, make sure you can stay warm without spending your hard-earned money on energy. If you’re concerned about energy policy, let’s make sure people aren’t trying to get to our country because their house was destroyed by hurricanes.”
Different folks respond to different messages. Named or not, the IRA offers campaigners up and down the ballot ample openings to localize and personalize its benefits on the get-out-the-vote trail. “Look, we’re doing this project, it’s working, and we’re just getting started.” Democratic candidates up and down the ballot should find it easy not to stumble on that message.
As climate hawks like Sen. Merkley note, however, we’re still stumbling badly when it comes to reducing emissions. This is where convincing voters gets a lot stickier. At one council meeting, as reported by Schuyler Mitchell, the senator said, “We have been woefully inadequate in addressing carbon in the atmosphere [and] as long as we are increasing fossil infrastructure, taking more fossils out of the ground, burning more carbon, that’s more carbon in the air.” Of natural gas, which now provides 33% of total U.S. energy and 40% of its electricity, Merkely said, “Fossil gas is not a bridge. Please call it fossil gas, call it methane. There is nothing natural about pulling it out of the ground.”
Keeping it, as well as coal and oil, in the ground depends on rapidly building clean replacements for the energy that those fossil sources now provide. Scientists inform us this build-out is not an option, it—and other actions to reduce emissions—is a necessity. While climate didn’t get the attention many activists sought, the 2024 Democratic Platform contains a lot.
How forceful the Harris-Walz administration will be in putting us firmly on a trajectory to curb some climate impacts will depend not on how many times Harris or Walz directly mentions climate change or the IRA in the campaign, but rather on what we all do in the next 10 weeks to bring about a Congress that acknowledges that the environment and the economy are inextricably entangled and can pass additional legislation to slash emissions and replace our killer energy system with a sustainable one. That same Democratic Congress could also give the new president the political support needed for a diplomatic campaign to reduce international rivalry and strengthen global cooperation on climate action. In short, real climate action depends on a Democratic trifecta in November no matter how many times climate is or isn’t mentioned by candidates in the campaign.
To reiterate DiPaola: “Let’s be clear: the most important climate policy right now is defeating Donald Trump in November.”
—MB
ECO-VIDEO(s)
[In this video, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland of the Laguna Pueblo, speaking at the DNC last week, called herself by her Keres language name that she translated as “Crushed Turquoise.” The closed caption writer heard it as “Chris Turquoise.”]
[John Russell from Appalachia took on the plutocrats in what maybe ranks as the most radical DNC speech since FDR’s acceptance address in 1936.]
RESOURCES & ACTION
ECO-QUOTE
“As a Floridian, as a Florida man, I’m here to tell you that the climate crisis isn’t some far-off threat. It is here. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance think they can divide us by saying this crisis is some type of hoax. But I’ve walked the streets of communities that have been forced to rebuild after hurricane flooding destroyed their homes. I’ve heard the stories of immigrant farmworkers made to work in horrid conditions exacerbated by this crisis. And I felt the scorching record heat.”—Central Florida Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost
ECO-TWXXT
RESEARCH, reports & STUDIES
HALF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS TO READ (OR LISTEN TO)
Conflicts Over Water Soared to New High Last Year from Pacific Institute. Conflicts over access to water rose to a 23-year-high last year, according to a new report from the Pacific Institute, a think tank. Researchers counted 347 quarrels over water compared with 231 in 2022. They wrote that droughts and floods are impairing water systems around the globe, which has led to greater conflict. The report includes incidents ranging from violent demonstrations in South Africa, attacks on water treatment and desalination plants in Gaza, a Russian attack that left Odesa, Ukraine, without water in January 2023, and a clash over water rights along the Iranian-Afghanistan border in May 2023. Peter Gleick, cofounder of the Pacific Institute, told the Los Angeles Times, “Drought and water scarcity is a major factor in the violence that we’re seeing over water resources. And we know that climate change is going to continue to accelerate and that droughts are going to become increasingly severe and widespread.”
Scientists Made a List of Lost Birds and Now They Want Us to Find Them: Some 144 bird species had not been seen in at least a decade, but a project by conservation organizations proposes they all may still be hidden somewhere in the wild. By Jim Robbins at The New York Times. In 2022, an ornithologist high in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northern Colombia spotted the shimmering emerald green and cobalt blue feathers of the Santa Marta sabrewing. A large hummingbird, it had only been documented twice since 1879. As the bird sat on a branch the ornithologist, Yurgen Vega, captured images. Once lost to science, it now was found. The bird was on the American Bird Conservancy’s 10 most wanted list, which sits atop a longer register of “lost birds,” which are formally defined as not having been documented by photographic, audio or genetic evidence in at least a decade.
Polar bears rummage through trash looking for eats in Chukotka, Russia.
Climate Change Is Pushing Polar Bear Populations Into Conflict With Humans, Scientists Say. By Michael Riojas at Ecowatch. Deep in Canada’s remote Brevoort Island, in the Nunavut territory, a radar technician was killed last week in a rare polar bear attack. Days earlier, a polar bear was spotted in Rankin Inlet, a remote, but fairly populated, Inuit settlement in the same territory. Experts warn that similar encounters with polar bears will likely become more common as climate change destroys their habitats and makes it more difficult to find food. John Ussak, a resident of Rankin Inlet, said he was afraid the polar bear was stalking a popular summer fishing spot, and attempted to scare it with warning shots, according to The Guardian. “It took 20 shots before it thought about leaving,” he said. “I’ve never seen that before.” Days later, he reported another polar bear sighting. “When I heard about what happened to that technician, I was shocked,” Ussak said. “We hardly used to see polar bears here in the past. But now we’ve had at least two in the last few weeks. It feels like there’s more bears up in that area — and they don’t seem afraid of people.”
One of the electric trains Caltrain rolled out last week.
California’s new electric train makes for a shockingly better trip—we tried it. By Adele Peters at Fast Company. If you ride on the newest commuter trains from San Francisco to San Jose, the first thing that you might notice is how quiet they are: Instead of the rumble of a diesel engine, the trains now run on 100% electricity. By switching to electric trains, Caltrain, the rail service, can eliminate 250,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions a year, roughly as much as the pollution from 55,000 cars. But it’s also just a better experience for riders. That might convince more commuters to stop driving to work, cutting emissions even further. First, the electric trains run faster than the diesel trains that they’re replacing. Instead of a single locomotive in the front pulling the entire train behind it, each individual car is now an “electrical multiple unit,” or EMU, with its own engine, connected to overhead electric wires. “It’s generating power throughout the system,” says Dan Lieberman, a public information officer for Caltrain. “It just allows it to get up to speed much faster.” Because the train can start and stop faster, Caltrain can add more stops to its express trains, and still shave minutes off the route. The new express route between San Jose and San Francisco will stop at 11 stations instead of seven, and take 59 minutes instead of an hour and five minutes.
Students at 548 Foundation's solar training program in Chicago practice installing brackets on a mockup of a roof.
The sky is the limit’: Solar program opens new opportunities for Chicago trainees by Kari Lydersen at Energy News Network. Darryl Moton is ready to “get on a roof.” The 25-year-old Chicago resident is among the latest graduates of an intensive 13-week solar training course that’s helping to connect employers with job candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. Moton was referred by another job readiness program meant to keep youth away from gun violence. He “never knew about solar” before but now sees himself owning a solar company and using the proceeds to fund his music and clothing design endeavors. He and others interviewed for jobs with a dozen employers assembled at a church on Chicago’s West Side on August 1 as part of the fourth training cohort for the 548 Foundation, which is partnering with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on a recently-announced $30 million initiative to create 1,000 solar jobs in Chicago’s South and West side neighborhoods.
Wrangling a white rhino in preparation for translocating it.
African Parks embarks on critical conservation undertaking for 2,000 rhinos by Simon Espley at Mongabay. African Parks, which manages national parks in several countries across the continent, plans to re-wild all 2,000 southern white rhinos from Platinum Rhino, winding up John Hume’s controversial intensive rhino breeding project. The conservation organization needs to find safe spaces to translocate 300 rhinos every year, as poaching of the animals for their horns continues. Potential recipient areas are assessed in terms of habitat, security, national regulatory support, and the recipient’s financial and management capacity. Earlier this year, 120 rhinos were translocated to private reserves operating as part of the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation. It’s worth spending a few moments contextualizing the worldwide rhino population crash at the hands of humankind, the backstory to my tale. Following the publication of naturalist William John Burchell’s drawings of the southern white in 1817, European hunters, armed with increasingly effective rifles, decimated the species across Southern Africa. “That the mortality due to man was not negligible is made quite clear by the very few hunters who put pen to paper recording, for instance, the destruction of 80 animals by two men in one hunting season alone, or the slaughter of eight at a water hole in a single day,” celebrated rhino conservationist Ian Player wrote for the Natal Parks Service magazine in 1960. By the early 1900s, there were fewer than 100 left.
ECO-TWXXT
ECOPINION
What Democrats Do and What Democrats Don't. Inspiration in Chicago, and Not Much in too many state capitols. By Bill McKibben at The Crucial Years. Much of my past month has been spent Kamaling—I don’t know if I hold the record, but along with helping organize and MC the Elders for Kamala call, I’ve made cameos on Climate Leaders for, Outdoor and Conservation Leaders for, Christians for, and Vermonters for. I’m for. Harris and Walz have run a sparkling campaign so far, and this week’s convention in Chicago is a reminder that Democrats look and sound like America at its best. As opposed to the monochrome and bitter gathering that nominated Trump (“Mass Deportations Now”), it’s been one long Party party. (When Patti LaBelle kicked off last night’s proceedings, the musician gap with the GOP grew unbridgeably wide). Which is not to say that Harris will be a sterling climate president—we’ll have to wait and see, because we had no primary to press her on it. I don’t like long campaigns any more than anyone else, but in our system they are the only place activists can actually make a forceful case—that’s how climate became a real presidential issue for the first time in the 2020 race, which led quite directly to the Inflation Reduction Act. (And now, instead of a second-term Democrat freed to act with relative abandon, we’ll have a first-termer constrained by thoughts of her re-elect). So we’ll doubtless have to push her, once we’ve helped push her into the White House. The reminder that there’s no automatic connection between a D next to your name and some courage on climate comes from many spots around the country, including even some where lots of good work has been done. Gretchen Whitmer and Coach Walz have gotten high high marks—converting narrow legislative margins into big action packages. But places where it should be easier—in the deep blue, not the purple— haven’t gone as well.
Is Public Transit A Bulwark Against the Climate Crisis? By LeeAnn Hall at Other Words. The climate crisis isn’t coming — it’s here now. We see it all around us — in cities and rural areas, and on the coasts and in every state in between. It impacts everything, from our economy to our national security. Each passing year brings unprecedented heatwaves, wildfires, and extreme weather events that wreak havoc on our communities in more ways than one. Rising temperatures strain energy resources, escalate health care costs due to heat-related illnesses, and displace vulnerable populations from their homes. The climate crisis demands swift and decisive action — like bolstering public transportation. The dirty secret is that the transportation sector is the largest source of U.S. climate pollution — and 80 percent of transportation emissions come from the cars and trucks on our roads. It’s one of the only major sectors where emissions are still rising. Because of this, investing in public transit is one of the most sensible and impactful things we can do to address the climate crisis on the scale that’s needed.
Carrots, sticks or both: State efforts to combat anti-renewables NIMBYs by Brian Martucci at Utility Dive. Utility-scale renewables development has ground to a halt in at least 15% of U.S. counties due to a combination of bans, moratoriums, and overly strict zoning and land-use restrictions, according to a February analysis by USA Today. Lawmakers in Michigan, New York, Illinois and other states with 100% carbon-free electricity goals are pushing back with policies that centralize renewables permitting at the state level, provide financial incentives for more permissive local ordinances, or both. Though initiatives like Michigan’s Renewables Ready Communities Award program are too new to have had an observable impact, the early success of two New York programs is heartening for advocates of community-oriented approaches that include tangible financial benefits for municipalities and utility customers. Such efforts could accelerate onshore wind and solar development, keeping state and federal governments on track to reach their clean electricity goals in the short term. But experts worry that the backlash to state policies perceived as unfair by host communities could entrench local opposition to utility-scale renewables, spur litigation and ultimately slow the energy transition. The most effective state policies, they say, incentivize constructive local participation in siting and permitting processes and nudge developers to treat host communities fairly while limiting opportunities for opponents to delay or kill mutually beneficial projects.
The Guardian view on meat: we need to eat less of it. The publication of a major study linking habitual eating of processed and red meat to a greater risk of type 2 diabetes is the latest very good reason to think hard about what we consume. Rising obesity rates, food poverty and concerns about the seemingly unstoppable rise of ultra-processed and junk food mean British eating habits are a longstanding source of widespread concern. Many people also recognise that there are environmental reasons to change their diets. Meat and dairy are the most carbon-intensive foods by far. Most of us should eat less of them. But the messaging around this continues to be poor. Ever since red and processed meat was linked to an increased risk of cancer a decade ago, people have been advised to limit their daily consumption of these to a maximum of 70g. But while the “five a day” fruit and vegetables campaign turns 21 this year, and warnings about excess sugar abound, other government guidelines on food remain vague. While they specify two weekly portions of fish, one of which should be oily, about meat they say only “eat some”. There are no recommendations as to how much white meat should be consumed.
Rethinking the “Doomsday Glacier”: Scientists Challenge Alarming Antarctic Ice Collapse Predictions. From Science Advances. A new Dartmouth-led report says that one of the worst projections of how high the world’s oceans might rise as the planet’s polar ice sheets melt is highly unlikely — though it stresses that the accelerating loss of ice from Greenland and Antarctica is nonetheless dire. The researchers write that a U.N. climate report addressed a possible “low likelihood” scenario in which the collapse of the southern continent’s ice sheets would boost average global sea level twice as high by 2100 than other models project — and three times as high by 2300. In the latter case, that would mean a rise of 50 feet. The prediction is based on a hypothetical mechanism of how ice sheets retreat and break apart. Known as the Marine Ice Cliff Instability (MICI), that mechanism has not been observed and has previously only been tested with a single low-resolution model. The researchers instead use a mechanism with three high-resolution models. They simulated the retreat of Antarctica’s " data-gt-translate-attributes="[{">Thwaites Glacier, the 75-mile-wide ice sheet nicknamed the “Doomsday Glacier” for the accelerating rate at which it is melting and its potential to raise global sea levels by more than two feet. Their models showed that even the imperiled Thwaites is unlikely to rapidly collapse during the 21st century as MICI would predict.
The Denka, formerly DuPont, factory in Reserve, Louisiana, on August 12, 2021. Silos, smokestacks and brown pools of water line the banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, where scores of refineries and petrochemical plants have metastasized over a few decades. Welcome to "Cancer Alley." Industrial pollution on this ribbon of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge puts the mostly African-American residents at nearly 50 times the risk of developing cancer than the national average, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Federal Judge Gives Louisiana Polluters a 'Free Pass' to Harm Communities of Color By Edward Carver at Common Dreams. A right-wing federal judge in Louisiana on Thursday permanently blocked two federal agencies from enforcing civil rights legislation that could protect Black communities from disproportionate pollution in the state, drawing condemnation from environmental justice advocates. The two-page ruling, issued by U.S. District Court Judge James Cain, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, is a setback in the push for accountability for corporate polluters, most notably in "Cancer Alley," a roughly 85-mile stretch that runs along the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Cancer Alley is home to a disproportionate number of poor and working-class Black people who have highly escalated risks of cancer thanks to the long line of petrochemical plants in the corridor. A recent study showed that the air there is far worse than previously realized. "Louisiana has given industrial polluters open license to poison Black and brown communities for generations, only to now have one court give it a permanent free pass to abandon its responsibilities," Patrice Simms, a vice president at Earthjustice, said in a statement.
OTHER GREEN STUFF
As waterbodies lose oxygen, are we breaching a potential planetary boundary? ¶On Cape Cod, the Wampanoag Assert Their Legal Right to Harvest the Waters ¶Big Oil Continues To Battle Back Against Lawsuits About Their Climate Pollution Culpability ¶Ecological art can bring us closer to understanding nature. How does this look in the era of climate change? ¶How ‘loving corrections’ could transform our relationships with one another — and the Earth ¶Federal aid addresses discrimination for thousands of farmers after years of delay ¶Harris Goes Light on Climate Policy. Green Leaders Are OK With That ¶US offshore wind pipeline and costs both surged some 50%: NREL ¶Conservative Republican Texas' main grid now has almost 25% of US installed utility wind and solar ¶Toyota hybrid among cars found to guzzle more petrol than advertised, study find ¶Climate change is messing with city sewers — and the solutions are even messier
