[TheClimate.Vote] April 24, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*April 24, 2020*/

[Politico Magazine]
*What Covid Is Exposing About the Climate Movement*
The "it's not you" approach might be good politics, but the Covid 
epidemic is showing it's also wrong.
Fifty years ago, 20 million Americans took to the streets for the first 
Earth Day, voting with their feet against the degradation of the planet. 
Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly captured the moment with his legendary 
anti-pollution poster: "We have met the enemy and he is us."...
- -
The good news, or at least the empowering news, is that the fewer 
greenhouse gases we emit, the fewer awful things will happen. And the 
more people adopt a personal ethic of climate responsibility, the more 
pressure our leaders will feel to embrace that ethic. While the virus 
has momentarily flattened the emissions curve, bending it permanently 
will require individual and systemic change.

The clean skies over Los Angeles are a reminder that pollution, like 
social distancing, is a choice, and that individuals can make it better 
or worse. The virus has taught us that in an emergency, we can change 
our behaviors in ways we never imagined possible--not just by 
telecommuting and forgoing business travel (new climate-friendly habits 
that will hopefully continue after the pandemic) but by uprooting our 
lives to save others.

But when we're told it doesn't matter whether we change our behavior, 
why should we believe climate is an emergency? So far, the people of the 
world have mostly managed, with notable exceptions and glitches, to come 
together to fight the common enemy of the coronavirus. It's much more 
complicated to fight the enemy when the enemy is us.

Still, the enduring lesson of Earth Day is that while governments and 
corporations rise and fall, we will always have just one planetary home. 
And nobody else will clean it up for us.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/21/earth-day-individual-climate-impact-198835



[Climate refugee analysis]
*Climate change, migration and the coronavirus pandemic*
Apr 16, 2020
Climate & Migration Coalition
Roughly 15 million people are displaced every year by climate and 
weather related disasters. This year much of that displacement will take 
place against the backdrop of a pandemic. This talk explores how the 
coronavirus pandemic collides with current patterns of climate-linked 
migration and displacement, and what this new situation means for the 
people most at risk. The session will explore locations that are 
particularly at risk, and examine the contexts in which these global 
crises coverage.
Presenter - Alex Randall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XI0CvEHsfQ&feature=youtu.be


[Journalism ponders the news]
*COVID-19 Has Lessons for Journalists Covering the Climate Crisis*
Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope
APRIL 20, 2020
THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC is a tragic reminder of just how essential 
fact-based, outspoken journalism is, especially in times of crisis. 
Without it, people die. In China, the lack of an independent press made 
it easier for the government to hide the danger of the virus, putting 
many more people, especially healthcare workers, at risk. In the United 
States, Donald Trump likewise downplayed the threat, calling it a 
"hoax," but faced pushback from much of the media. By highlighting what 
science and medical experts say, rather than the fake controversies 
around it, such reporting is helping to push the US death toll lower 
than it otherwise would be.

Now it's time for the same journalistic rigor and urgency around the 
other great crisis of our time. The overlaps between the coronavirus 
crisis and the climate crisis are many, and the same best practices when 
it comes to reporting are needed. Here, too, newsrooms must let facts, 
especially scientific facts, be our guide. We must stand up to the 
powerful, remembering that journalists work for the public, not for 
governments. We must report with compassion, candor, and courage, not 
only chronicling the ongoing devastation, as important as that is, but 
also illuminating credible remedies and reasons for hope.

Toward that end, the global journalistic collaboration Covering Climate 
Now, founded a year ago by CJR and The Nation, has launched a week of 
coverage coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day and 
focusing on climate solutions. Comprising more than four hundred TV, 
radio, wire-service, and digital and print news outlets with a combined 
audience approaching two billion people, Covering Climate Now organized 
a similar week of joint coverage in September around the UN Climate 
Action Summit that helped drive a massive increase in overall media 
coverage of climate change.

Going ahead with this week of climate solutions coverage even as the 
coronavirus continues to ravage communities around the world is not an 
easy call. We know from conversations with colleagues throughout the 
media that most newsrooms are already working overtime to cover this 
pandemic, and that audiences crave that in-depth, 24-7 coverage.

Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for all of us here. As awful as 
the coronavirus is, it is something of a test run for the challenges of 
a climate crisis that continues to accelerate. Our job, as journalists, 
is to extract lessons from the covid-19 crisis that we can apply to 
covering the climate crisis. It is, as author and activist Bill McKibben 
recently wrote in The New Yorker, a daunting task. "The edifice [of 
contemporary society] seems so shiny and substantial, a world of silver 
jets stitching together cities of towering skyscrapers, a globe of 
soaring markets and smartphone connectivity," McKibben wrote. "But a 
couple of months into this disease and it's all tottering…"
- -
It is notable, and encouraging, that even as people understandably 
obsess about the coronavirus, they remain interested in climate stories.
The similarities between the causes of and solutions to the coronavirus 
and the climate crisis are nothing short of eerie. In both cases, it is 
imperative to respect science, intervene early to flatten the curve, and 
prepare for impacts that can't be avoided. The coronavirus shows what 
horrors can result when governments, often abetted by propaganda organs 
masquerading as news organizations, scorn science, shun early action, 
and fail to fortify their societies against the predicted results. It is 
precisely now, in this moment of rawness around the coronavirus, that we 
can most ably draw lessons to help us do better against the onrushing 
climate crisis.It is notable, and encouraging, that even as people 
understandably obsess about the coronavirus, they remain interested in 
climate stories. "We've found that there is an audience; a lot of people 
want to hear about climate change," Justin Worland, the climate 
correspondent for Time, said during a "Talking Shop" conference 
organized by Covering Climate Now on April 16.

So during this week of Earth Day's fiftieth anniversary, look for an 
abundance of first-class reporting and analysis of climate solutions by 
the news outlets of Covering Climate Now. We define solutions broadly, 
to include not only technical fixes such as solar panels and seawalls 
but also policy reforms such as pricing carbon and ending fossil fuel 
subsidies as well as civic actions to advance these reforms, including 
voting, protesting, and, yes, better journalism. To reach the broadest 
possible audience, some of Covering Climate Now's partners--including 
The Guardian, Reuters, CBS News, WNYC public radio, HuffPost, the Asahi 
Shimbun, and CJR--will make their coverage available free of charge for 
all partners to republish or rebroadcast.

We are also excited that on Earth Day itself, this Wednesday, a number 
of the biggest names in news will announce that they are joining 
Covering Climate Now, expanding our collaboration's reach and ability to 
keep the climate story at the top of the public agenda.

Optimism does not come easy at this moment in our history. But we can 
draw hope from the fact that we can learn from the coronavirus crisis, 
and that it can provide a road map for stories that will matter about 
the climate crisis and, crucially, its solutions.

Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope are the authors. Mark Hertsgaard is the 
executive director of Covering Climate Now, the environment 
correspondent for The Nation, and the author of HOT: Living Through the 
Next Fifty Years on Earth. Kyle Pope is the editor and publisher of 
Columbia Journalism Review.
https://www.cjr.org/covering_climate_now/covid-19-pandemic-cimate-crisis.php



[Interview with Margaret Klein Salamon]
*Anxiety and the Flight to Safe Living*
Margaret Klein Salamon interviewed on Radio Ecoshock - her new book
Did you feel a sense of dread about the way things were going, even 
before the Corona virus pandemic? Five years ago when clinical 
psychologist Margaret Klein Salamon claimed a climate emergency she was 
called alarmist and extreme. Now cities and countries all over the world 
call a climate emergency. Margaret has a new book on how to overcome 
eco-anxiety. Forget the year 2100 - new science shows ocean systems 
begin to die off during this decade, with land ecology soon after. Dr. 
Alex Pigot joins from London to explain this major paper published in 
the journal Nature...
- - -
Margaret warns "my goal is not to make you happy, and it's certainly not 
to help you avoid pain. This is not about feeling good or finding 
satisfaction". That sounds strange coming from a clinical psychoanalyst. 
But it is real and true, given our current predicament.

Here is the kind of hard truth you can expect from Margaret. She writes:

"Suicides are up - at their highest point in 50 years - and are now the 
second leading cause of death for Americans under age 35. One in six 
Americans takes psychiatric medication, primarily for depression and 
anxiety. Opioids kill more Americans than car crashes. Virtually all of 
us resort to something fro numbing and distraction: We watch 33 hours of 
TV a week, scroll endlessly on social media, play video games, and watch 
pornography. We drink too much, eat too much, work too much, compete too 
much, and buy too much. simply put, Americans - and people all over the 
world, are in pain."

"We are in pain because our world is dying and, through our passivity, 
we are responsible for killing it."

"This pain has several dimensions. It is the fear we feel for ourselves 
for our loved ones, and for all humanity; it is the empathy and grief we 
feel for the people and species already immiserated or killed; it is the 
crushing guilt that we feel for continuing to let this happen. Our pain 
is the consequence of our participation in a destructive system. But we 
are not merely victims. Through our participation in this system through 
our passivity, we are also perpetrators."

Many years ago I read the work of psychoanalyst and antinuclear activist 
Erich Fromm. We talk about his view of what Sigmund Freud, the founder 
of psychology, called "the death instinct" and how that applies to 
climate anxiety.

In her new book "Facing the Climate Emergency", Margaret gives the 
example of being at work when a fire alarm goes off. We don't see any 
fire or smell the smoke. Is it real or a false alarm? Our action may 
depend on how others react. Climate change can be here among us before 
we experience all the symptoms. That sounds so like COVID-19.

The story in Klein Salamon's new book about her Grandmother's life-long 
distrust of people due to experiences in Germany during the Holocaust - 
rang a bell for our times now. The Grandmother was aghast that ordinary 
Germans went to work and beer halls while their Jewish neighbors were 
hauled away. I found an similar eerie feeling watching big crowds gather 
at sports events and churches even as the pandemic was obviously coming 
ashore. The same for all those useless cruise ships each emitting as 
much greenhouse gas as a million cars, while climate wrecks living 
systems around the world. People will cling to normal even when the 
whirlwind is blowing things down. How can we let go and start anew with 
reality?...
download https://www.ecoshock.net/downloads/ES_Salamon.mp3
*HANDLING ECO-ANXIETY - MARGARET KLEIN SALAMON*
Last week while people huddled in their homes to slow the pandemic, a 
string of strange and strong tornadoes struck the American South and 
wild storms knocked out power to about a million people in the 
Northeast. Extreme weather, hot oceans and the coming heat waves tell us 
climate change has not self-isolated to fit the times. Now we have 
double anxiety, where even the safe and dependable are suspect. We are 
literally out of touch with people we love. How can we grow out of that? 
Margaret Klein Salamon was a clinical psychologist in New York City. 
Then Hurricane Sandy struck. Life was not the same, and Margaret's 
journey took a big turn toward facing the climate threat.

In June of 2015 I interviewed Margaret about The Climate Mobilization 
movement she organized. Since then cities and countries over the world 
have declared a climate emergency.
https://www.ecoshock.org/2020/04/anxiety-and-the-flight-to-safe-living.html
- -
Find her new book "Facing the Climate Emergency - How to Transform 
Yourself with Climate Truth" at New Society publishers, or anywhere 
books are sold online.
- -
[the book]
*Facing the Climate Emergency*
How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth
by Margaret Klein Salamon and Molly Gage
As the climate crisis accelerates toward the collapse of civilization 
and the natural world, people everywhere are feeling deep pain about 
ecological destruction and their role in it. Yet we are often paralyzed 
by fear.

Help is at hand. Facing the Climate Emergency gives people the tools to 
confront the climate emergency, face their negative emotions, and 
channel them into protecting humanity and the natural world.

Drawing on facts about the climate, tenets of psychological theory, 
information about the climate emergency movement and elements of memoir, 
coverage includes:

How to face the climate crisis and accept your fears, anger, grief, 
guilt, and other emotions
Turning negative feelings into tangible action to respond to the crisis
Rising to heroism, becoming a "climate warrior," and maximizing your 
impact by joining the Climate Emergency Movement
Support material, including further reading, questions for 
self-reflection, and exercises to complete with like-minded groups
Written for the suffering multitudes struggling to cope and looking for 
answers, Facing the Climate Emergency provides the motivation, guidance, 
and support needed to leave "normal" behind and travel the path of the 
climate warrior, rising to the challenge of our time.

About the Authors
Margaret Klein Salamon, PhD, is a clinical psychologist turned climate 
warrior and founder of The Climate Mobilization, which pioneered the 
internationally recognized Climate Emergency Declaration campaign. She 
lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Molly Gage, PhD, is a book developer committed to women-authored 
nonfiction books that push forward progressive ideas and elevate the 
voices of the women who think them.
Click here to search for all books from this author.
https://newsociety.com/books/f/facing-the-climate-emergency


[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - April 24, 2004 *

In one of the strangest weekly radio addresses ever recorded, President 
George W. Bush tries to put a positive spin on his administration's 
environmental record.
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040424.html
http://www.c-span.org/video/?181525-1/PresidentialRadioAddress419


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