Summer Perils and a Climate Promise
Where do we go from here? A new bill and a #500DayClimateAction idea
You’re at Mother E, a free newsletter about our connections to nature and other species in a climate-changing world. If you missed the last article, it’s here: Journaling in the Redwoods #1
If this newsletter gets shortened by an email program or the images don’t show, you can read it on the website here.
SUMMER IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE has turned into a season of heightened perils, changing our perception of summertime. Frequent episodes of forest fires, deadly heatwaves, flooding in Yellowstone and Kentucky, and parching droughts may leave you wondering—what’s next for our climate?
It can feel disheartening when political action is too slow, but this week’s last minute “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” is welcome progress. If passed, it will provide $369 billion in transformative investments. Some money will clean up the electric grid, help Americans buy EV cars, heat pumps, and install solar. It also provides funds for environmental justice, cleaning up degraded ports and assisting direct victims of fossil fuel pollution. In addition, the bill helps revamp agriculture to draw down more carbon into the soil.
But Senator Joe Manchin, who also owns a coal-trading company, has buried inside the bill a push for more oil and gas drilling leases on public land, locking in fossil fuel production for decades to come.
The United Nations has declared the planet to be in a state of “Code Red” so it’s imperative that we act quickly now to heal our climate and biodiversity crises. Ultimately, the transition away from fossil fuels may have to come from us—from consumers who refuse to keep using a product that’s been so harmful to our planet. But we need more available choices.
What actions are needed now? You‘re probably aware of most of them: lower our consumption, shift away from using fossil fuel products (including plastics), and help restore local land and water habitats.
In addition, climate health is improved by anything that builds closer, more resilient communities, provides products (like food) locally, and links people with nature. That’s a wide field of possibilities.
Restoring Earth will provide its own rewards. As author Kate Soper notes in her book Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism, there are pleasures and satisfactions in a low-growth future with a slower pace, lighter consumption, more equity for all races and species, and improved community connections. And imagine for a moment what Earth would look like with more wild places restored, animal and plant communities reinvigorated, and humans healthier.
First, we have to deal with overconsumption. In 2022, Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 28. What does that mean? It means we’ve overspent our Earth-resource budget by about 50%.
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth regenerates during the entire year.
Ideally, our existence should have a lighter footprint on this planet and include more restoration. But it feels like we’re in an entrenched pattern that keeps us in non-sustainable living patterns. We can blame the fossil fuel industry for some of that difficulty.
The Guardian reports that this industry had a “staggering $3 billion-a-day profits for the last 50 years” and they’re fighting to keep those profits flowing. Here is an astonishing line from the Guardian article: “The fossil fuel industry also benefits from subsidies of $16bn a day, according to the International Monetary Fund.” Doing the math, $16,000,000,000 at 1,440 minutes per day works out to a subsidy of $11.1 million per minute across the globe.
Yes, our governments are paying to prop up a dying industry that’s putting our planet in danger. Wouldn’t it be helpful if we could use that money to transition quickly towards cleaner fuels that won’t destroy our planet? Current CO2 levels (a greenhouse gas) from burning fossil fuels are now higher than anytime in the last 3-5 million years, creating a precarious future for all of life.
Why are 2022 and 2023 so important?
The next several years are crucial because we’re already getting closer to tipping points that are making the planet less predictable and more hazardous. After a number of tipping points have been passed, we may lose the power to influence Earth’s climate, so these next few years are momentous ones.
Humans have already warmed the planet to 1.1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial times. Scientists predicted tipping points would happen between 1 to 2 degrees C rise, so we’re in that zone already.
In 101 months, the United States will have achieved President Biden’s most important climate promise — or it will have fallen short. Right now it is seriously falling short, and for each month that passes, it becomes harder to succeed until at some point — perhaps very soon — it will become virtually impossible. That’s true for the United States, and also true for the planet, as nearly 200 nations strive to tackle climate change with a fast-dwindling timeline for doing so.
The U.S. Plan to Avoid Extreme Climate Change is Running Out of Time
Washington Post, Analysis by Chris Mooney and Harry Stevens
So how do we get unstuck from this unsustainable way of living? How can we have a real shot at giving ourselves and future generations a livable planet even if governments are not acting fast enough?
The 500 Days Challenge
What if we adopted a sense of urgency and did as much as we could in the next 500 days to help avert a climate breakdown? August 1, 2022 to May 14, 2024 is that time frame.
One way to help the needed transition away from fossil fuels is to ditch gas and propane appliances (and cars) and electrify everything. The electric grid, especially in the West, is increasingly being powered by solar and green energy sources. On April 30, 2022, California ran on 100% green energy for the first time. More homes are installing solar panels every week to feed this electric grid.
In the spirit of electrifying everything, my household is considering replacing an older gas furnace with a new energy-efficient heat pump (which both heats and cools), removing one more gas-using appliance from the system. Look first at replacing the appliances that use the most gas/propane.
If more people shift away from using fossil fuels, we’ll transition faster to a cleaner and cooler planet. We don’t need Senator Joe Manchin’s cooperation to make our own changes, though government action can certainly make the transition happen at a larger scale.
Make your voice heard
You can also help by making your voice heard. I listened recently to a call from author and activist Joanna Macy about taking action to help the world— and what’s holding us back. To paraphrase Macy, the corporate/industrial/ political system wants three things from us:
To be consumers
To be obedient
To be silent.
Maybe we’re held back from effective action by society’s training as compliant consumers.
Here are questions about navigating around that unhelpful training during a planetary crisis.
How do we lower current levels of consumption (to push back Earth Overshoot Day) and allow Earth time to heal? Can we find inspiration from how humans were able to live well in earlier times?
What would it look like if social silence about the perils of climate breakdown ended, and people started discussing it more freely? Would we find solutions faster and be able to adapt better?
What would happen if cautious obedience recognized a higher force, that of standing up for what life needs to survive? Is courageous action the shift we need?
This happened recently in Ecuador, where an indigenous-led movement courageously called a massive national strike, gaining concessions from their right-wing government to halt new oil drilling and mining in sensitive areas and stabilize gas prices. This was democracy in action.
Individuals collectively really do have the power to change a system. Here’s another Mother E article about women who are making a difference: Climate Crisis Meets Female Energy
I’ve been inspired by the people who see the cliff we’re headed towards, and are steering us away from the precipice. We need millions of small actions to tug our society in the right direction, to love our planet and its many inhabitants better.
My personal take? Find a like-minded group or organization to inspire you, then begin (or continue) to link hands in the most urgent task humankind has ever faced.
We are all activists, activating one story or another through the power of our attention and the way we participate in our communities.
Daniel Christian Wall, author, Designing Regenerative Cultures
#500DaysClimateAction
Find the Helpers
There are many people and movements that are making a difference. We need to now speed up the restorative actions. Whether you’re inspired by young leaders or older ones, there are plenty of ways to learn more and help restore your patch of Earth or nudge governments at all levels to do more. Here are a few of the thousands of individuals and organizations making a difference.
This decade needs your voice too.
Bill McKibben is founder of 350.org and ThirdAct for older Americans. Bill is an author, activist and journalist. You can follow his Substack blog, The Crucial Years here. He has been instrumental in the defunding movement to get banks, institutions and other corporate groups to stop investing in and insuring fossil fuel companies. Follow the money.
Ecosystem Restoration Camps are sprouting up throughout the world to restore degraded areas and develop regenerative ways of living. California has a new one in my county (Mendocino) called Camp the Land. You can read about what they’re doing here or contribute to ecosystem restoration worldwide.
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin is Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute and an expert on systems thinking. She advocates for win-win-win solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well-being, equity, and economic vitality. Her pithy observations on Twitter from @bethsawin always expand my thinking.
Project Drawdown is “The world’s leading resource for climate solutions.” Here is Drawdown’s page of the many solutions to bring climate under control. Check it out. You might find some surprising topics!
Pachamama Alliance, Extinction Rebellion, Bioneers, Sunrise Movement, Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, and thousands of environmental organizations—all are effectively working to empower people for the benefit of Earth.
We have choices.
Will we pick the world that is—or the world that could be?
Dr. Jonathan Foley, Project Drawdown
Thanks for reading!
Robin Applegarth
I like to hear from readers.
What group or persons do you follow to keep current with climate changes?
What do you think of a #500DayClimateAction challenge?
You can comment at the button above, or reach me privately by responding to this email. I can also be reached on Twitter @RobinApplegarth
Not subscribed yet? Mother E is a free newsletter that comes right to your email box every other Sunday. Get reflections on our connections to other species in a climate-changing world.
#500DaysClimateAction is a wonderful idea.
Robin,
Thank you for Mother E. and for your commitment to a healthier planet.