Did you happen to read the David Suzuki interview that has recently taken the “climate change activist community” by storm?
For many of us who work and think and write about the changing climate, Suzuki’s comments were shocking and provocative on a visceral level.
He was brutally honest. He argued that the constant pursuit of economic growth has made it "too late" to prevent the worst effects of global warming, although he maintains he has not given up on action. Instead, he is now urging a shift in focus to building local community resilience, self-sufficiency, and adaptability in the face of unavoidable climate impacts.
There’s more (I’ve linked it below) but to me, the key and most chilling takeaway was Suzuki’s phrase: “units of survival.”
Here’s the full interview.
Yes, Suzuki does opine that it is “too late” – that the fight against climate change is lost. The damage is done. The emissions have been emitted that will seal our doom. The end is nigh. Or words to that effect.
But while he’s a respected voice, and it’s shocking to hear him admit defeat, he’s only ONE voice, right?
Many, many voices still ring out with hopeful messages. Here are a few samples.
*) We’re having another COP — time for some real action!
*) Renewables are gaining even more traction and are often the cheapest available form of energy!
*) EVs are overtaking gas powered cars!
And here’s what sober-sided NASA has to say:
Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still. However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries. There is a time lag between what we do and when we feel it, but that lag is less than a decade.
While the effects of human activities on Earth's climate to date are irreversible on the timescale of humans alive today, every little bit of avoided future temperature increases results in less warming that would otherwise persist for essentially forever. The benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions occur on the same timescale as the political decisions that lead to those reductions.
That sounds relatively hopeful, no? In contrast to Suzuki’s gloom and doom, NASA, and many others, appear to be offering us hope.
And there might still be hope, no? In the interview, Suzuki does not advocate against climate action, even at this late date. He even mentions revolution (my favorite topic)!
But crucially, he says,
...I’m saying, as an environmentalist, we have failed to shift the narrative, and we are still caught up in the same legal, economic and political systems.
In other words, what NASA is framing as a political discussion that sounds, in their breezy prose, like a thing that might actually happen, is, to Suzuki, a still-intractable foundational issue that continues to stymie not just productive discussion, but any sort of action. (For the record, I agree.)
The NASA message of a 10-year lag and the almost throwaway line, “if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today” seems not just naive, but disingenuous.
Because honestly – do you see any momentum around the issue of climate change? Do you sense a groundswell of concern? Do you feel the public outrage, and the pent-up urge for action? Have you even seen the phrase “climate change” in any of the recent reporting on the flooding in Texas, or the wildfires outside of Marseilles, or the repeated heat waves/heat domes in Europe, or Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica? If you are in the United States, it is almost certain that you have not.
In a few reports here in the UK, “climate change” appears as a throwaway, as a tossed aside mention that elides the true horror in favor of blithely gesturing at the disaster as a foregone “this is our new normal” conclusion. In no mainstream reporting that I have seen anywhere does climate change take center stage. In no mainstream or popular reporting that I have seen anywhere does climate change appear as a calamity against which people might rail. Except for places like Substack, and here on DailyKos, no non-specialty reporting that I have seen anywhere lists “further resources” or information on how to contact your MP or representative or... anyone.
In the interview, Suzuki goes on to say this:
For me, what we’ve got to do now is hunker down. The units of survival are going to be local communities, so I’m urging local communities to get together. Finland is offering a great example because the Finnish government has sent a letter to all of their citizens warning of future emergencies, whether they’re earthquakes, floods, droughts, or storms. They’re going to come and they’re going to be more urgent and prolonged.
No surprise that a Nordic government has the right idea. We know that Scandinavia has its socialist, scientific, caring act together.
But in the United States? It looks like we are on our own.
The weather is getting worse. The climate is swiftly degrading, Wildfires and drought and hurricanes and heat domes and flash floods and... gestures around wildly... are never (in your lifetime, or mine, or your children's) going to get less violent and destructive and horrifying.
The federal government under the current administration is withdrawing, rather than proffering more, help.
The corporate media is blind, compliant, and complicit.
With our 240+ year old democracy itself on the precipe of collapse, US politicians on the left no longer have much time or energy to spare for the climate (presuming enough of them even cared sufficiently in the first place.)
The federal government is shut.
SNAP benefits are barely going out and there’s no guarantee there will be any sort of fix before people are utterly desperate.
Even the opposition – Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion and, heaven help us, Greta Thunberg, have pulled in their horns. The silence is, to coin a phrase, deafening.
As disasters mount, even if there WERE the political will to take last ditch, emergency measures (energy/gas/beef rationing, for example) we’ll be less and less able to send federal or state dollars that are adequate to clean up and re-build — because we’ll need to clean up and rebuild in more places, after ever-worsening climate disasters.
As people around the globe begin to abandon uninhabitable areas, the push of migration will begin to strain aid systems, governments’ ability to manage the flows, and the carrying capacity of the environments and communities into which they are moving.
Disease will continue to creep north, together with their insect hosts. Fish and flora and wildlife will move as well. And growing seasons will be altered, to the point where harvests will be massively disrupted, and shortages will start to strain supply chains and reserves.
Like it or not – and who the HELL would like this? – we’re staring down multiple intertwined global disasters. We are looking barely a decade into the future and seeing the onrushing collapse. And unless we can scream louder and resist harder and get in more faces in real life, with revolutionary zeal, to get some assistance from government or NGOs or, I dunno, SOMEONE, then we are our own units of survival.
I do not see anyone or anything coming to help in any comprehensive way. Do you?
The entrenched systems — the interlocking machines of corporate greed and sclerotic bureaucracy and the self-interested elites at their helms — are, instead, arrayed against us. Against the people being flooded, burned out of house and home, battered by storms and punishing heat.
We are well and truly on our own.
Thanks for reading my (very) intermittent output here. :-)
I also have a Substack: climaterevolutionnow.substack.com
