Category: Advocacy

‘Our choices will reverberate for hundreds, even thousands, of years.’

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In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted the unprecedented scale of the challenge required to keep warming to 1.5°C (or 2.7°F). Five years later, that challenge has become even greater due to a continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

The warning

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Synthesis Report warns that the pace and scale of climate action are insufficient to tackle climate change. More than a century of burning fossil fuels as well as unequal and unsustainable energy and land use has led to global warming of 1.1°C (2.0°F) above pre-industrial levels. This has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world.

According to the IPCC, every increment of warming results in rapidly escalating hazards. More intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall, and other weather extremes further increase risks for human health and ecosystems. Increased warming also increases food and water insecurity. As risks combine and grow, they become even more difficult to manage.

Taking the right action now could result in the transformational change essential for a sustainable, equitable world.

The challenge

We need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half by 2030 to create a safer and more sustainable world. We need to scale up practices and infrastructure to enhance resilience. This climate action needs to happen along several dimensions and needs to be designed for diverse contexts. Further, increased financing for climate action at a level three to six times the current climate investment is needed.

The hope

Mainstreaming effective and equitable climate action now will reduce losses and damages. We currently have multiple, feasible, and effective options available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We have the ability to adapt to human-caused climate change.

Integrating measures to adapt to climate change with climate action provides wider benefits:

  • Improving people’s health and livelihoods
  • Reducing poverty and hunger
  • Providing clean energy, water, and air

The resilience

Fairness is one of the solutions. and lies in developing climate resilience. This involves integrating measures to adapt to climate change with actions to reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions in ways that provide wider benefits.

“Climate justice is crucial because those who have contributed least to climate change are being
disproportionately affected.”

-Aditi Mukherji, one of the 93 authors of this Synthesis Report

Climate resilient development becomes progressively more challenging with every increment of warming. This is why the choices made in the next few years will play a critical role in deciding our future and that of generations to come.

Resiliency to be effective needs to be rooted in our diverse values, worldviews, and scientific, Indigenous Knowledge, and local knowledge. This approach will allow locally appropriate, socially acceptable solutions.

Our climate is interconnected with society and ecosystems. Effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30-50% of the Earth’s land, freshwater, and ocean will help ensure a healthy planet. Changes in the food sector, electricity, transport, industry, buildings, and land use can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, foster low-carbon lifestyles, and enable health and well-being. A better understanding of the consequences of overconsumption can help people make more informed choices.

1,500+ Scientists slam punishment of colleagues for peaceful climate action

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Tommaso.sansone91, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tommaso.sansone91, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

“Climate scientists are citizens and humans too. As citizens, we have our own views of the world and we engage in the public debate in the ways we see fit. As humans, we have the inalienable right to express our opinions in a peaceful manner.”

By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams

More than 1,500 scientists on Thursday released a letter declaring that they are “appalled by the recent retaliation against colleagues who dared to exercise their civil and human rights” with a peaceful protest at a December conference in Chicago.

Published by news outlets around the world in English, French, and Portuguese, the letter comes after Rose Abramoff and Peter Kalmus unfurled a banner that read “Out of the lab & into the streets” just before an art and science plenary talk at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

“As scientists, we make detailed observations and carefully design experiments and models to understand the causes, processes, and implications of climate change” the letter states. “We stick to facts and do our best to inform policymakers and fellow citizens, and train students in rigorous scientific methods.”

“Importantly, climate scientists are citizens and humans too,” the letter adds. “As citizens, we have our own views of the world and we engage in the public debate in the ways we see fit. As humans, we have the inalienable right to express our opinions in a peaceful manner.”

Citing scientific conclusions about the causes of the climate emergency and the urgent need to address them, the letter stresses that “more than ever, we need to engage actively as citizens-who-are-scientists in working for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and the swift transition to a low-carbon future.”

The AGU—which has over 60,000 members and 23 peer-reviewed journals— describes the annual conference as “the most influential event in the world dedicated to the advancement of Earth and space sciences.” The organization launched a probe into the protest.

While Kalmus still works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, fired Abramoff over the demonstration, which she wrote about in a New York Times opinion piece earlier this month.

Abramoff and Kalmus—who have both been arrested for previous climate-related civil disobedience—disrupted the AGU event for less than 30 seconds. Someone swiftly ripped the banner from the scientists’ hands and AGU staff escorted them from the stage. Kalmus tweeted that “the AGU took our badges and kicked us out of the meeting.”

HEATED reported Friday that the day before the protest, during a grief circle at the conference that was asked to disperse to clear a hallway, “Abramoff said she gave her phone number to one of the AGU officials. HEATED independently identified this official as the senior vice president of meetings, Lauren Parr.”

The report added that “after being expelled from the conference, Abramoff said she received a phone call from Parr (Abramoff did not name Parr in the conversation with HEATED), in which Parr threatened arrest if the two returned; said their research would be removed from the conference; and that AGU would contact their work institutions.”

Parr declined to comment while an AGU spokesperson declined to confirm those details and “also attempted to prevent HEATED from naming Parr, claiming she had been receiving significant harassment and death threats,” according to the outlet.

The new letter—signed by members of the Earth system science community from dozens of countries, including several authors of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports—charges that “the response with which they were met was by far disproportionate,” calling out both “the AGU’s actions against them and the recent retaliation that followed.”

The letter continues:

We argue that the cost of silence in the face of such unfair and disproportionate treatment, for the scientific community and the planet, would be too high. The heavy-handed and unjust responses to a short banner unfurling not only threatens the careers of two scientists, it also discourages researchers—and especially early-career scientists—from engaging with their colleagues and society and to speak out about the urgent need for climate action. We are deeply concerned by a decision that tells scientists that they risk their careers if they dare speak out or engage in advocacy that is not formally approved. Employers should not punish scientific researchers for participating in nonviolent climate action. Academia and membership organizations like AGU should be safe spaces for freedom of expression.

We stand by our fellow climate scientists who express frustration with the lack of meaningful climate action within the scientific community and the public, who bring attention to the urgency of the moment in a nonviolent manner. We stand by Rose and Peter.

Scientists and others from across the globe have publicly shared similar sentiments since mid-December.

Erika Spanger-Siegfried, director of strategic climate analytics in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate and Energy program, warned last week that “in the absence of a clear endorsement of the objective (not the means) of Abramoff and Kalmus’ actions, AGU’s response, coupled with Abramoff’s firing, may be seen by the scientific community as a strong, disapproving, and chilling signal to scientists to step back from climate activism—just when the world needs them to show up in new, courageous ways.”

An open letter addressed directly to the AGU—so far signed by over 2,000 people—says that “we as scientists cannot and must not tolerate this censorship and chilling lack of support from our scientific society and therefore urge AGU to: i) reinstate the scientific contributions of Rose Abramoff and Peter Kalmus to the program; ii) officially rescind any communications AGU may have had regarding this incident with Rose Abramoff and Peter Kalmus’ former or home institutions until after the AGU professional misconduct investigation has concluded; and iii) immediately close the professional misconduct investigation.”

In response to AGU CEO Randy Fiser’s January 11 statement about the demonstration and subsequent investigation, Aaron Thierry tweeted that such protest “is both necessary and justified,” and pointed to an August paper he published in the journal Nature Climate Change with four other climate scientists and a political scientist who focuses on civil disobedience and social movements.

According to Thierry, rather than sanctioning and investigating Abramoff and Kalmus, the AGU “should be backing them in their efforts!”

This post has been updated with HEATED’s additions clarifying that the news outlet independently identified Lauren Parr and Rose Abramoff did not name the AGU official.

3 reasons local climate activism is more powerful than people realize

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Greta Thunberg (weißes T-Shirt und Megaphon mitte-rechts) und Luisa Neubauer (daneben in Grün) im Demonstrationszug von Fridays For Future, Berlin, 24.09.21
Greta Thunberg (weißes T-Shirt und Megaphon mitte-rechts) und Luisa Neubauer (daneben in Grün) im Demonstrationszug von Fridays For Future, Berlin, 24.09.21

By Adam Aron, The Conversation

Global warming has increased the number of extreme weather events around the world by 400% since the 1980s. Countries know how to stop the damage from worsening: stop burning fossil fuels and shift to renewable energy, electrify transportation and industry, and reduce the carbon intensity of agriculture.

But none of this is happening fast enough to avoid warming on a catastrophic scale.

In my new book, “The Climate Crisis,” I lay out the mechanisms and impacts of the climate crisis and the reasons behind the lack of serious effort to combat it. One powerful reason is the influence that the fossil fuel industry, electric utilities and others with a vested interest in fossil fuels have over policymakers.

But there’s another reason for this inaction that everyone has the ability to change: response skepticism – the public doesn’t believe in its own political power enough or use it.

When people speak up and work together, they can spur powerful changes. You can see this in university students demanding that their chancellor retire the campus fossil fuel power plant and switch to renewable electricity. You can also see it in ranchers in Colorado pushing their governor to enact a clean electricity standard so that they can benefit from having wind turbines on their lands.

Protesters marching. Photo by Kelly on Pexels.

Yet, while 70% of American adults describe climate change as an important concern, only 10% say they volunteered for an activity focused on addressing climate change or contacted an elected official about it in the previous year, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center poll.

Why do so few adults participate in actions to encourage governments and decision-makers to do more about climate change, even though surveys show they support doing so, and how can they overcome the skepticism holding them back?

What prevents people from speaking out

Polls show some people see how money from wealthy industries and individuals influences politicians and don’t believe politicians listen to the public.

Others are distracted by arguments that can tamp down engagement, such as campaigns that urge people to focus on individual recycling, or ask why the U.S. should do more if other countries aren’t, or argue that that there’s no need to rush because future technology will save humanity. Some believe that corporate and university promises to reach carbon neutrality in the future – often far in the future – are enough.

These narratives can be seductive. The focus on recycling, for example, offers a sense of satisfaction that one accomplished something. The arguments that China emits more greenhouse gases and that future technology will fix everything appear to exonerate people from having to take any steps now.

American adults' views vs. actions on climate change.

Studies have found that participating in local climate actions may require a constellation of values, attitudes and beliefs, including believing in one’s own ability, and the group’s, to get things done. Some of these beliefs can be developed through practice in organizing together, which is often downright fun, and has other psychological benefits that flow from increased solidarity in an often alienating society.

What I believe is particularly important is having a local theory of change – believing that, while human-caused climate change is a global problem, it is worthwhile taking local action.

3 reasons local activism matters

Research and history suggest that local action is more powerful than many people realize. Here are three key reasons:

First, much of the policy change that can affect climate change is local rather than national.

For example, replacing fossil fuel power plants with renewable energy technology can help lower greenhouse gas emissions. Much of this is under the control of state governments, which delegate the authority to public utility commissions. The public can pay attention to what utilities and public utility commissions do, and let their governors know that they are watching by writing letters and joining local groups that make their voices heard.

ECO NOT EGO. Global climate change strike - No Planet B - 09-20-2019. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.
ECO NOT EGO. Global climate change strike – No Planet B – 09-20-2019. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Cities can set policies to replace natural gas with electric appliances in homes and buildings, encourage homeowners to install efficient electric heat pumps and determine whether investments are made in public transit instead of freeways. When pressured, city officials do enact these policies.

Second, local wins can become contagious. In 1997, a handful of advocates in Massachusetts won their battle for a local policy under which a portion of electricity bill payments went to a not-for-profit agency that funneled money toward renewables. By 2022, this policy, known as community choice aggregation, was adopted by over 1,800 local governments across six states, affecting millions of people. Local action can also create learning curves for technology – pushing for more solar and wind turbines leads to increased manufacture and price drops.

Third, local action can trigger national policy, spread to other countries and ultimately trigger global agreements.

There are many historical examples, from the suffragette movement that won U.S. women the right to vote, to the fight for a 40-hour work week. Local action in the Southern U.S. catalyzed 1960s civil rights laws. Local action for same-sex marriage, starting in San Francisco, led to state laws and ultimately to federal legislation signed in December 2022 that prohibits states from refusing to recognize out-of-state marriages based on sex, race or ethnicity.

Fridays for Future climate march. Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash.
Fridays for Future climate march. Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash.

Environmental regulation in the 1970s is a striking case. It started with public alarm about cities clouded in smog, rivers catching fire from industrial waste and beaches fouled by oil spills. Citizens organized thousands of protest actions, and municipalities responded by implementing environmental enforcement.

The lawsuits that followed were very costly for corporate interests, which then supported federal intervention as a way to have predictable rules. It was President Richard Nixon who signed some of the furthest reaching legislation ever.

Youth successes in changing climate policy

In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which authorizes nearly $400 billion of climate-related spending over 10 years. I believe the youth-led Sunrise Movement can claim a major role in its success.

The group has relentlessly organized marches and demonstrations in dozens of cities since 2019 and pressured Democrats in Congress. While the result fell short of the group’s vision for a Green New Deal, it went further than any previous climate-related law.

The Conversation