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transition towns
Worried About the Climate Crisis? Just Start Doing Something
No matter where you are on the political spectrum, there is a group for you.
Feb 09, 2024
The world has temporarily reached the 1.5°C of warming that scientists had long warned must not be exceeded. And more and more people are feeling the consequences directly—most recently in Chile, where over 120 people have been killed by wildfires that were partly fueled by climate change. Global heating also contributed to the atmospheric rivers drowning California in torrential rains, creating mudslides, and causing hundreds of thousands to lose power. Scientists now say that climate change might lead them to add a Category 6 to the hurricane scale. January 2024 was the ninth-straight-warmest month on record and yet another record-breaking month after 2023 was the hottest year on record.
You would think that all this would finally make Americans want to prioritize climate protection. Instead many are lining up behind a man who does not accept the scientific consensus on climate change, who ridicules what he calls climate fanaticism, and promises to “drill, drill, drill” from his first day in office. And American banks are changing their mind and investing in fossil fuel infrastructure again. That should be considered criminal under these circumstances. No wonder the rest of the world is staring at us in disbelief.
But there is hope: In surveys conducted by Yale Climate Change Communications last year, 64% of Americans said they are worried about global warming. The problem, according to Anthony Leiserowitz, who has been leading this research, is that many also say they “don’t know what to do. They are actually quite eager to do something but have never been asked by someone they like and trust.”
I have a solution for all you worriers waiting to be asked, and it’s a simple one. Just start doing something.
We need everyone to change everything. That includes you.
Millions are already doing something, because the information about what to do is easily available. Rob Hopkins has written a whole book about The Power of Just Doing Stuff to address climate change. Joylette Portlock has a wonderful series of YouTube videos telling people “Don’t just sit there, do something” about climate change.
You don’t have to do this alone. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, there is a group for you. Start in your own neighborhood and see if yours is a Transition Town. If not, consider becoming one! If you’re able to devote time to organizing others, join a chapter of 350 or Extinction Rebellion. If you’re into lobbying, join Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Hey, and if you’re over 60 there’s even a Third Act. The Climate Disobedience Center has done a stellar job supporting those who put their bodies on the line. At a minimum, you could open your pocketbook and help fund any or all of these groups.
Some people also say the climate crisis is simply too overwhelming, and they aren’t wrong. It is perfectly normal to be seriously concerned about a planetary crisis that threatens life on Eearth. Every climate scientist and climate activist experiences bouts of deep grief over the losses we are already incurring. You’d have to be either heartless or brain dead or both if you weren’t just a bit overwhelmed by it all. But that’s no excuse not to do anything. Not until you’ve tried everything.
And climate activism is really something everyone can do. To be sure, if you saw recent coverage of Greta Thunberg in court or Jane Fonda in Denver, Colorado you might get the idea that climate activism is something just for VIPs. But it’s not. Yes, every now and then there are spectacular events—large rallies or headline-grabbing stunts—where people take great risks or commit a lot of time; some also choose to break the law to raise attention to the crisis.
But the vast majority of a climate activist’s work isn’t risking arrest or marching. It’s taking time to meet and strategize, reaching out to others to get them informed and involved. It’s reading a lot and writing op-eds like these. It’s much less glamorous and much less risky than the media coverage suggests.
And we could really use your help. Because the other side is unrelenting in its attacks on climate protection.
There’s no more room for excuses. (If you don’t trust me or don’t know where to start—there are plenty of official websites—from the U.N. to the EPA to WWF to EarthDay.org to explain the basics.)
The good news is that climate activism works. We saw that most recently when the Biden administration put a pause on LNG export facilities, meeting a major demand by climate activists across the country, and especially at the frontlines in the Gulf region.
But we need everyone to change everything. That includes you. Please join us.
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Stop Misdiagnosing Climate Change
So what's the real source of our planetary self-destruction? It's growth-dependent capitalism.
Oct 12, 2018
The recent IPCC report has received widespread attention. The report states that rapid and bold actions are necessary to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change and that the goals of the Paris Accord will be insufficient. This has resulted in an outpouring of opinion pieces calling for individuals to take actions in their daily lives to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to pressure elected officials to take significant steps to support renewable energy. This sense of urgency is critically needed, yet most of these calls for action are misguided due to a widespread misdiagnosis of the climate change problem.
To address a problem, it is most effective to identify the root cause. One might argue that the root cause of climate change is fossil fuel combustion. However, this overlooks how our current economic system not only continues to protect and sustain the fossil fuel industry but also drives the continuous increases in production and consumption causing environmental degradation at large. What is this system? Growth-dependent capitalism. Here we focus on the impacts of that growth. The prioritization of economic growth is what makes highly effective actions, such as buying-out or nationalizing fossil fuels and keeping them in the ground, infeasible. A recently released UN document, related to the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report, suggests that the root cause of climate change is the economic system, namely one that prioritizes profits at the expense of ecological and social well-being.
"We need to move beyond an economy that prioritizes growth."
Evidence is mounting that demonstrates how prioritizing a growing economy is the true driver of climate change. Data shows a positive relationship between economic growth and GHG emissions. This makes sense since GDP growth correlates with material production, including carbon: GDP growth by 1% equals a 0.6% growth in material use and a 0.5-0.7% increase in carbon emissions. Even scientists working on carbon budgets have come forward stating that reducing GHG emissions is incompatible with economic growth. While proponents of "green growth" support the idea of increasing GDP while reducing GHG emissions (known as absolute decoupling), this has yet to be realized. Studies show that decoupling in developed nations has been a result of increased carbon-intensive production in developing nations.
Greening growth through alternative energy, efficient technology, and carbon markets has had limited and paradoxical impacts. Efficiency gains are in many cases partially or completely offset by increased consumption. Because we are not implementing policies to decrease fossil fuel use, a unit of energy produced by alternative energy does not replace a unit of energy produced by fossil fuels and is correlated with increased total energy use. In a system prioritizing economic growth, the effectiveness of green alternatives will continue to be constrained by increasing levels of production and consumption. In addition, market mechanisms that prioritize profit have not slowed climate change. The EU Emissions Trading System, the oldest and largest carbon market, has not dramatically reduced emissions. In 2017, the EU policy director stated that "the EU carbon market will continue to fail at its task to spur green investments and phase out coal." Due to these realities, we need to move beyond an economy that prioritizes growth.
But isn't economic growth critical for a thriving society and human well-being? Actually, economic growth has only been a social priority for a relatively short time. As stated by ecological economist Herman Daly, it is largely believed that "without economic growth all progress is at an end." He counters this belief by asserting, "[o]n the contrary, without growth . . . true progress finally will have a chance." Stopping economic growth doesn't mean we cannot meet our needs. We will still have enough. We will simply put an end to the production and consumption of more and more unnecessary things that harm us and the environment for the sake of a 3% annual increase in GDP. In fact, studies show that economic growth that goes beyond satisfying basic needs does not increase happiness. What it does is push us beyond ecological limits in dangerous ways. By putting growth in its place, we can prioritize people, climate, and prosperity before profit. More and more people are starting to question whether a capitalist system that prioritizes profit and growth above all is really a good thing.
"To accurately diagnose the climate change problem, we have to get at the root - our economic system."
These ideas are spurring on an increasing number of academic and activist projects that offer alternatives. For example, the degrowth movement supports planned economic contraction and dematerialization in developed nations. Degrowth proponents explain why people would be happier in this new economic system. While there would be reduced total material production and consumption, there would be growth in social services, well-being, sharing, community agriculture, energy and worker cooperatives, not to mention a stronger sense of community. This does not necessitate living without modern conveniences, just not more and more of them. A range of degrowth policies have been proposed, including work time reduction, which has been shown to reduce material production, energy use, and GHG emissions while increasing health and well-being. Policies to reduce working hours would represent a critical step in restructuring our economy to address climate change.
Perhaps this all seems radical. That would be appropriate, as the word "radical" from the Latin radicalis means relating to the root. To accurately diagnose the climate change problem, we have to get at the root - our economic system. As the authors of the UN document explains, we need to "focus on life-improving and emissions-reducing goals rather than abstract economic goals." They call for a new system where "economic activity will gain meaning not by achieving economic growth but by rebuilding infrastructure and practices toward a post-fossil fuel world with a radically smaller burden on natural ecosystems." They conclude by making clear that "states are the only actors that have the legitimacy and capacity to fund and organize large-scale transitions." While communities move forward with important projects that put ecosystems and people first, we also need to push our governments to recognize economic growth as the root cause of climate change and implement policies to re-create our economy.
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We Need Cities of Resistance: Climate Adaptation Is No Longer an Option
The old adage that a crisis is never a crisis until it is validated by disaster has become a reality for seventy percent of our cities already dealing with flooding, drought, fire and environmental decay
Oct 12, 2018
IOWA CITY--The arrival of Hurricane Michael on the heels of the landmark IPCC climate report is a reminder that climate "adaptation" is no longer a viable option.
Adapting to a failed system in an age of climate change, as the devastation from Hurricane Michael attests, is failure, not adaptation.
My own town in Iowa had to cancel celebrations this week for a recently completed $60 million flood mitigation project on our Iowa River, due to even more flooding. With the red lights of the University of Iowa's coal-fired power plant burning in the background, the irony of climate failure was not lost on anyone.
Our nation spent more than $300 billion on recovery from climate disasters last year. The historic barrage of hurricanes in 2017--wiping out Puerto Rico's and the U.S. Virgin Islands' infrastructure, grinding the city of Houston to a stop, and placing Miami's downtown streets under water--served as a brutal and costly reminder that our major cities along the coasts have reached a reckoning with the rising tide.
"We can no longer continue with the delusional planning that somehow doing 'less bad or harm' is sustainable; instead, we must actively break from our dependence on fossil fuels and rebuild our local economies in ways that restore our relationships with nature and regenerate the ecosystems we depend on."
The old adage that a crisis is never a crisis until it is validated by disaster has become a reality for seventy percent of our cities already dealing with flooding, drought, fire and environmental decay.
Cities, towns and campuses can no longer champion the disingenuous framework of climate adaptation plans based on volunteer efforts to recycle, change light bulbs, eat less meat on Mondays or carpool with coworkers that willingly cross a bridge to the future that everyone now knows is on the verge of collapse.
Calling for a 45% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 to avert further catastrophe, the IPCC climate action recommendations should be a clarion call for every town, cities and campus to halt their business-as-usual models and re-envision urban planning for a new era.
We can no longer continue with the delusional planning that somehow doing "less bad or harm" is sustainable; instead, we must actively break from our dependence on fossil fuels and rebuild our local economies in ways that restore our relationships with nature and regenerate the ecosystems we depend on.
We need to launch a new era of "regenerative cities," or rather, cities of resistance that restore our ecosystems, reclaim the public commons and give new meaning to renowned theorist Buckminster Fuller's vision in an age of climate change. "You never change things by fighting the existing reality," Fuller told us decades ago. "To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
No one understands this better than the "Just Harvey Recovery" movement, where an alliance of groups in the Gulf region has been calling for a "just transition" for communities and ecosystems on the cusp of being left behind as a sacrifice zone for our country.
No one understands this better than a growing movement of residents in Gary, Indiana, a devastated steel city that has received more requiems of poverty and environmental ruin than any other city in the country.
Earlier this summer, I was inspired by a group of young people who took part in an "Ecopolis" program to envision the rebirth of their community and local economy as a "regenerative city," based on green enterprise zones and green jobs training, walkable urban planning and efficient housing, decentralized renewable energy, local food production and soil carbon sequestration initiatives.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." The program was not just a wished-for vision; it took place in the Progressive Community Church, powered by solar energy, and cornered by four hoop houses for year-round food production and an orchard.
They called for "cities of resistance," not simply adaption to a coal-fired system that has contaminated their air and soil, but left their future in peril.
"Love song to the scarred lungs of my people," young poet Krystal Wilson rapped, "because in my city, glocks ain't got nothing on poison and hostile air."
Young climate activists in Gary, like those in the Gulf, are giving us a new climate narrative that reclaims scientist Barry Commoner's long overlooked warning for a post-carbon age. Hailed as the "Paul Revere of Ecology" on the cover of Time Magazine in 1970, author of the classic work, The Closing Circle, Commoner forewarned that a corporate takeover of environmental governmental policy was carrying us "to the brink of ecological disaster not by a singular fault, which some clever scheme can correct, but by the phalanx of powerful economic, political, and social forces that constitute the march of history." Only the resistance to the current economic and environmental structure could "change the course of history," he concluded.
That type of resistance took place a day after the IPCC report, when a state judge in Minnesota acquitted three climate activists of using bolt cutters to cut through chains and padlocks at a valve site for two oil pipelines.
But another type of resistance is also taking place in our cities--as regenerative cities become cities of resistance. Take St. Louis, headquarters of the world's largest coal company, Peabody Energy, and dependent on coal-fired plants for 75 percent of its electricity; the St. Louis Board of Aldermen unanimously voted last fall to adopt a goal of obtaining 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2035.
This is the first step toward a regenerative city.
By building on Commoner's landmark "four laws of ecology," urban theorist and author Herbert Giradet has spent years developing "regenerative cities" as a natural sequence in planning in an age of climate change. "The urban metabolism currently operates as an inefficient and wasteful linear input-output system," Girardet posited in his groundbreaking work in cities in Europe, Australia, and around the globe. "It needs to be transformed into a resource-efficient circular system instead. The only way to overcome notions of ever-greater scarcity is for cities to continually regenerate the living systems on which they rely for their sustenance."
Following this regenerative approach, the Australian city of Adelaide reduced its carbon emissions by 20 percent from 2007 to 2013, and is on track to become the first carbon neutral city in the world. The city galvanized a boom in green jobs, developed walkable neighborhoods powered by solar energy, converted urban waste to compost and revamped local food markets. The city also planted three million trees to absorb carbon.
In an age of climate change, such a vision is not only an essential framework for a new climate resistance.
It may be our only option--for adaptation.
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