By recognizing the inter-connectedness of all life, we can move beyond the idea that we are separate selves and expand our compassion and love in such a way that we take action to protect the Earth. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh: only love can save us from climate change, Jo Confino, The Guardian, 1/24/2020
With regard to the climate crisis, yes, it’s time to panic. We are in deep trouble. These should be the defining terms of the 2020 election. Four more years of trump may spell the end of much of life on Earth, including organized human society in any recognizable form. Strong words, but not strong enough. Noam Chomsky: Democratic party Centrism Risks Handing Election to Trump, C.J. Polychroniou, Truth Out, 11/22/19.
Climate disruption demands a reckoning on the terrain most repellent to conservative minds: wealth redistribution, resource sharing, and reparations…the real solutions to the climate crisis are also our best hope of building a fairer and much more enlightened economic system – one that closes deep inequalities, strengthens and transforms the public sphere, generates plentiful, dignified work, and radically reins in corporate power. Why Naomi Klein Has Been Right, Alyssa Battistoni, Jacobin Magazine, 12/17/19
The crisis is not imminent. The crisis is here. The recent infernos in Australia; the storms and floods in Brazil, Madagascar, Spain and the US; and the economic collapse of Somalia, caused in part by a devastating cycle of droughts and floods, are not, or not only, a vision of the future. They are signs of a current escalating catastrophe…When firefighters arrive at a burning building, they don’t set themselves a target of rescuing three of the five inhabitants. They seek- aware that they may not succeed – to rescue everyone they can. Their aim is to maximize the number of lives they save. In the climate emergency, our aim should be to maximize both the reduction of emissions and the drawing down of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. There is no safe level of global heating: every increment kills…The appropriate response to the climate emergency is a legal duty to maximize climate action. Let’s abandon climate targets, and do something completely different, George Monbiot, The Guardian, 1/29/2020
What we need to fix this thing is rational hope. Hope that by collectively, for example, conserving natural resources, eating more local food and adopting more renewable energy, humans can take care of the earth and prevent climate disasters that hurt impoverished people the most. For making a Christian case for combating climate change, Texas Tech’s Katharine Hayhoe is a finalist for Texan of the Year, Dallas News, 12/19/19
The Green New Deal [Senator Bernie Sanders is[ proposing is not only possible, but it must be done if we want to save the planet for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and future generations. 57 Climate Scientists Object After Biden Falsely Claims ‘not a single solitary scientist’ Thinks Sanders’ Green New Deal Can Work, Common Dreams, 1/20/2020
We need to offer a vision of the joy of collective accomplishment, the joy of working together. The joy of working together across lines of race or other things that separate people. We have to be not just the side that’s about gloom, which is what I feel, but about possibility and good feelings…it has to start with the knowledge and the faith that we can solve problems when we work together. Which means it has to start with some sort of work as well as an understanding of how totally mutually dependent we are. the issue is no longer the Left versus the Right. It’s those who want as many people as possible to survive this crisis and those who will be satisfied to get a few hundred thousand billionaires safely tucked away in their missile silos turned into mansions. Barbara Ehrenreich on Her Endorsement of Bernie Sanders and Why Socialism Should Be Fun, In These Times, 1/30/2020