[✔️] February 24, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Rebecca Solnit, clip French video series The Collapse, William Rees, Baba Brinkman, After Oil Conversation, TED ta; lk disruption,
Richard Pauli
Richard at CredoandScreed.com
Fri Feb 24 09:34:17 EST 2023
/*February 24, 2023*/
/[ wise woman of considerable positivism ] /
*Hope Amid Climate Chaos: A Conversation with Rebecca Solnit*
The writer and activist shares her thoughts on the climate movement’s
wins, the key difference between optimism and hope, and the “clarifying”
violence climate activists face.
OPINION
ANALYSIS
By Stella Levantesion
Feb 21, 2023
From throwing soup against paintings, to blocking roads, to striking
for the climate, to stopping private jets from taking off, activists
worldwide are pushing harder than ever for action to address global
warming. And they are delivering a clear and consistent message: What
has long been accepted as the status quo — expanding fossil fuels,
investing in polluting industries, oil and gas propaganda, greenwashing,
climate change denial, governmental delay in climate action — is simply
not acceptable anymore. The climate movement is working incessantly to
make this clear to everyone.
When we talk about any movement, including the push for climate action,
we’re talking about a “zeitgeist, a change in the air,” writer,
historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit writes in her essay-turned-book
Hope in the Dark, which focuses on the intersection of activism, social
change, and hope. It’s this last element, hope, that can become “an
electrifying force in the present,” Solnit writes, “a sense that there
might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the
present moment even before it is found or followed.”
As activists and others work towards this door, they do so with the
belief that there is still time to act and that the climate is worth
fighting for. These same convictions are at the core of Solnit’s and
storyteller Thelma Young Lutunatabua’s most recent project, Not Too
Late, which offers perspectives, resources, and “good paths forward” for
those who care about the climate. The pair are also transforming the
project into a book, coming April 2023, with contributions by activists,
authors, experts, journalists, and others from around the globe.
I published the first Gaslit column a year ago this month. To celebrate
its one-year anniversary, I wanted to depart from the usual format to
focus on the essential role of activism and hope in combating the forces
of delay and denial. I spoke with Solnit about hope and the future of
climate action in the face of intensifying impacts from global warming,
oil and gas industry propaganda and greenwashing, violence against
activists, and inaction by political leaders. The following conversation
has been edited for length and clarity.
*Stella Levantesi *In Hope in the Dark you wrote that hope requires
imagination and clarity, and in your latest essay published by the
Guardian you said that every crisis is a storytelling crisis. The Indian
writer Amitav Ghosh also said that the climate crisis is a cultural
crisis, and thus a crisis of imagination. If we cannot imagine it,
tell it, be culturally immersed in it, how can we face it? How do we
reconcile these three dimensions: the climate crisis, imagination, and
hope? And if we succeed in reconciling them what can that lead to?
*Rebecca Solnit* I always feel it’s very important to clear up the
distinction between hope and optimism. For me, optimism is a form of
certainty: everything will be fine, therefore, nothing is required of
us, which is really the same as cynicism and pessimism and despair.
Hope, for me, is just recognizing that the future is being decided to
some extent in the present, and what we do matters because of that reality.
I think the fundamental role of imagination and hope is just the ability
to imagine a world that’s different from what it is now. [Writer]
Adrienne Maree Brown once said that all organizing is science fiction
because you’re imagining something that doesn’t exist yet. But of
course, it’s like, what is it that you’re imagining? I find that so many
people around me are very good at imagining everything falling apart,
everything getting worse; they’re good at dystopia, they’re bad at utopia.
There’s a lot of reasons why people find dystopia very credible and
utopia or improvements hard to comprehend. I think some of that comes
from amnesia. If you don’t know how much the world has been changed, to
some extent for the better, how much the climate movement has achieved,
then you don’t really have a picture of how change works either.
*LEVANTESI *We imagine hope as something that has to do with the future
solely, but you’ve underscored it’s not just about the future. What is
the role of memory in hope?
*SOLNIT *Various people, including the theologian Walter Brueggemann and
the climate activist and lawyer Julian Aguon, talk about memory as
crucial to hope. And I share their belief. If you don’t understand the
past, you don’t understand that people have faced the end of their
world. Things change powerfully and profoundly over and over again —
change is the one constant — and then you can narrow in and focus on the
fact that grassroots movements, citizens organizations, NGOs, activists
— people who are often considered to be powerless, irrelevant, marginal
— have changed the world over and over again.
*LEVANTESI *In Hope in the Dark you’ve emphasized how activism can bring
about change in a non-linear way, how sometimes it is subtle and slow
but how, within it, we must recognize the importance of victories. What
are the most significant victories of today’s climate movement?
*SOLNIT *I think the biggest one of all happened in the last couple of
years, but it’s a matter of consciousness rather than legislation or
divestment or one of the practical things we aim for: We have captured
the public imagination.
Five years ago, 10 years ago, a lot of people weren’t worried about the
climate. They didn’t care about it, they didn’t think about it, they
didn’t see it as urgent, they weren’t engaged with it, nor were they
supportive of the need to pursue the solutions. That’s really different now.
There was surely a point where we were more or less starting from
nothing, but we’ve built strong movements, we’ve achieved a lot of
victories. The fossil fuel industry is very aware of our power and is
fighting it with everything they’ve got. A lot of energy transitions are
underway. The Paris [Agreement] is a huge victory. And in our
forthcoming book, Not Too Late, [we’re] changing the climate story from
despair to possibility. The divestment movement has gotten [nearly] $41
trillion divested.
Each thing I talk about has indirect consequences. The [fight against
the Keystone] XL pipeline educated so many of us, including me, about
the Alberta tar sands and the role of pipelines in the fossil fuel
industry and the volatility of pipelines as a pressure point. The
divestment movement helped a lot of people recognize this particular
form of complicity; a lot of us have [recognized] what our money is
doing, or what our church’s money or university’s money or government’s
money is doing. We also portrayed the fossil fuel industry the way we
portrayed apartheid regimes and other things as morally reprehensible.
You’re always making indirect change, even with the most direct change
you pursue — and sometimes direct change doesn’t yield consequences.
*LEVANTESI *Repression from governments and police today against climate
activists in movements such as Just Stop Oil in the UK or “Last
Generation” in Italy to some extent parallels the fossil fuel industry’s
lies, and the climate deniers and delayers targeting activists through
propaganda and attacks. What does this violence say to you?
*SOLNIT *The first takeaway that I think is really important and often
lost is this proves that they’re scared of us. They think we’re
powerful, they think we’re going to have an impact, because they’re
desperate to stop it. You don’t use violence unless you are really
concerned. Propaganda and lies haven’t been good enough.
Violence, I think, is also very clarifying. That is, in a way, almost
easier to deal with than the other thing that’s happened — decades of
denying, trivializing the climate crisis, all the greenwashing, the
pretending that they are doing what the climate requires. When it comes
to a lot of fossil fuel–related entities and beneficiaries of the
industry, we see delay, distraction, false promises, which are almost
harder to fight than violence.
Environmentalists have been attacked [for a long time]. I once read a
lot of the book reviews of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, and
to see the industry and the mansplainers and the corporate shills attack
her credibility, her right to speak, her sanity, the facts of the
situation, to see how many environmentalists, particularly in the global
south, have been murdered for speaking up since Chico Mendes and Ken
Saro-Wiwa in the ’80s and ’90s, is to know [that] when there’s huge
amounts of money and power at stake, the game can be very dangerous —
and it always has been.
*LEVANTESI *A common strategy of political leaders, as well as the
fossil fuel industry, is to deny the need for change, sometimes by
delaying it and stating that another world is impossible, but sometimes,
as you call it, by promoting “false hope.” Can you tell us about how
“false hope” works and whether it involves the use of fear?
*SOLNIT *On the one side, I think there’s what I call “naïve hope” which
is really optimism, the idea that things are going to be fine, that it
will all work out, et cetera. But “false hope” is usually cynicism
pursuing a corrupt agenda, because these people don’t actually hope the
solutions will work. They hope that you’ll believe — the public will
believe — these solutions will work. They can’t imagine that the world
could just be very, profoundly different in day-to-day life — how we
consume, what our values are. False hopes to me are just marketing by
people who are cynical. And then you see people believing it.
I was really frustrated when the nuclear fusion came out of Lawrence
Livermore [National Laboratory]. To see the mainstream media jump on it,
like, “We’re going to have this amazing new energy source” not only gave
people the false hope that fusion, which has been “just around the
corner” for decades, is now really, truly just around the corner, but it
also framed it as though to address the climate we need a solution that
doesn’t exist. [This] is stupid and dishonest when we already have the
solutions.
*LEVANTESI *Change is often framed through sacrifice. This idea that to
stop fossil fuel production and transition to clean energy is to
renounce something, to sacrifice something — what’s behind this? Has the
fossil fuel industry succeeded in forcing the perception that oil and
gas are necessary to the way we live? Are we unable to imagine a
different world? What is it? And how can we overcome it?
*SOLNIT *I can’t speak globally, but I know that a lot of comfortable
people in the U.S. perceive most changes as loss. It’s been fascinating
looking at the recent controversies — of course fueled by the
[political] right and the fossil gas industry — over gas stoves. They’re
downplaying the real health hazards of having methane inside your home,
and they’re also downplaying how well induction cooking works. And so
many people are kind of like, “If we change this thing, my life will get
worse.” A lot of it is propaganda, but there is also a lot of fear that
change is always loss.
I also think the whole climate story, since the Al Gore era, has been
told as a kind of renunciation story and in fact, I am working on a
piece [about this] right now. What if we invert that? What if we see all
the ways our lives are poor now — poor in hope, poor in social
solidarity, poor in mental and emotional wellbeing and confidence in the
future, poor in social connectedness, poor in relationship to nature.
What if we imagine the abundance of doing right the things we’ve done
wrong, of a world in which [nearly] 9 million people a year don’t die
from breathing fossil fuel emissions, in which childhood asthma is not
epidemic in the places where fossil fuels are refined, in which the
fossil fuel industry doesn’t corrupt global politics. What if
renunciation was in fact renouncing poison, corruption, deprivation,
uncertainty, a dismal future, miserable health?
*LEVANTESI *One of your chapters in Hope in the Dark is called
“Everything’s Coming Together While Everything Falls Apart,” which is
something activist and Fossil Free Media’s Director Jamie Henn said to
you during a conversation in 2014. Do you feel like everything’s coming
together while everything falls apart today?
*SOLNIT *I do. It often feels like we’re in a race. Can the things that
are coming together — which, of course, for me would be the positive
things, the climate movement and the changes we’re trying to make —
outrun the negative things, which are both climate change and its
catastrophes and destruction?
The forces trying to prevent the measures we need to address the crisis
have increased greatly. In 2014, people still talked about climate
change largely as something that was going to happen. Now it’s so in the
present tense and the climate movement has become so much bigger, more
powerful. It’s won a lot when you look at how much progress there has
been around legislation, the buildout of renewables, and the
technological breakthroughs.
A lot of times you look at something and it doesn’t look better than
last week or sometimes last year. But you look at where we were 10 years
or 40 years ago and you see a lot. The long trajectory is part of what
makes me hopeful.
https://www.altaonline.com/dispatches/a42955294/climate-change-interview-rebecca-solnit-stella-levantesi/
https://www.desmog.com/2023/02/21/rebecca-solnit-interview-climate-crisis-activism-hope/
/[ subtitled video clip from The Collapse - French video series ]/
*The Collapse**
*Just Collapse
440 views Feb 22, 2023 #collapsology #JustCollapse
A scientist and a minister go head to head on live television in this
extract from the breakthrough French series "Le' Effrondement" (The
Collapse), based on the academic discipline of #collapsology.
We collapse if we do, we collapse if we don't. Don't just collapse -
#JustCollapse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZaOk80HDsQ
- -
/[ small clip with William Rees ]/
*Is this Collapse?*
Just Collapse
1,000 views Jan 31, 2023
In this two minute excerpt of a worthy conversation between two highly
respected minds, Bill asks the big question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1iVJJleLak
/[ here's some Baba Brinkman -- rap artist video from 4 years ago 3:47
mins ]/
*Confessions of a Skeptic – Baba Brinkman Music Video*
Baba Brinkman
8.86K subscribers
18,178 views Nov 3, 2018
New album "See From Space" available now:
Bandcamp: https://music.bababrinkman.com/album/...
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/see-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IDUZ1glnes&list=RDMM
- -
/[ his latest video posted 3 weeks ago ]/
*Can't Stop Remix (feat Mariella) – Baba Brinkman Music Video*
Baba Brinkman
1,134 views Premiered Jan 31, 2023 #neuroscience #philosophy #freewill
Featuring world-renowned philosophers and scientists, "Free Will? A
Documentary" is an in-depth investigation into the most profound
philosophical debate of all time: Do we have free will?
Watch the film now:
https://www.freewilldocumentary.com/watch
Version Without Lyrics:
https://youtu.be/uDfrRUXZ7Ww
Remix from the album "See From Space" (2019):
https://music.bababrinkman.com/album/see-from-space
Original track from "The Rap Guide to Consciousness" (2018):
https://music.bababrinkman.com/album/the-rap-guide-to-consciousness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x07nvxd_Vu0
/[ video opinion from the Conversation - 37 min audio ]/
*After oil: the challenges and promise of getting the world off fossil
fuels*
The Conversation
12.5K subscribers
Feb 23, 2023
Our dependence on fossil fuels is one of the biggest challenges to
overcome in the fight against climate change. But production and
consumption of fossil fuels is on the rise, and expected to peak within
the next decade. We speak to two researchers who examine the political
challenges of transitioning to a world after oil, and what it means for
those states who rely on oil for resources.
Featuring Caleb Wellum, Assistant Professor of U.S. History, at the
University of Toronto in Canada, and Natalie Koch, Professor of Human
Geography at the University of Heidelberg, in Germany.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced and written by Mend
Mariwany who is also the show's executive producer. Sound design is by
Eloise Stevens, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for
this episode are available here. Sign up here for a free daily
newsletter from The Conversation.
- -
For developing world to quit coal, rich countries must eliminate oil and
gas faster – new studyCOP27 flinched on phasing out ‘all fossil fuels’.
What’s next for the fight to keep them in the ground?Ending the climate
crisis has one simple solution: Stop using fossil fuels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMQh4MZwJ6I
/[ TED how to face the age of climate disruptive futures the
consequences of decarbonization. Any debate with physical reality
cannot be resolved with words. 18 min video ]/
*The Blind Spots of the Green Energy Transition | Olivia Lazard | TED*
TED
Aug 19, 2022 #TEDTalks #TEDCountdown #TED
The world needs clean power, but decarbonization calls for a massive
increase in the mining and extraction of minerals like lithium, graphite
and cobalt. Environmental peacemaking expert Olivia Lazard sheds light
on the scramble for these precious mineral resources -- and how the
countries that control their supply chains (including China and Russia)
could find themselves at the center of the new global stage. Learn why
Lazard thinks planetary security depends on our ability to de-escalate
resource competition and avoid the same mistakes that led to the climate
crisis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za6dE5JrNB0
/[The news archive - looking back at GWBush ]/
/*February 24, 2002*/
February 24, 2002:
In the Denver Post, Bruce Smart of Republicans for Environmental
Protection rips President George W. Bush's February 14, 2002 speech on
climate change:
"...President Bush reaffirmed the nation's commitment to the U.N.
Framework Convention's 1992 goal 'to stabilize greenhouse gas
concentrations at a level that will prevent dangerous human
interference with the climate,' and he outlined an environmental
path for the nation to follow. A number of the specifics he
proposed, if forcefully pursued, can be helpful.
"But the medicine prescribed for the world's greatest environmental
threat—the malignant growth of atmospheric concentrations of
greenhouse gases—is only a well-packaged placebo. It is no cure for
global warming and the hazardous changes in climate that a great
majority of scientists believe it is likely to cause."...
- -
As the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, both in total and on a
per capita basis, and as the leader of innovative technology, it is our
nation's responsibility to lead n averting the climate threat the world
faces. The time for feel-good placebos for voters or candy for
industrial sweethearts is long past. The nation needs to give the Bush
plan a prompt reality check and push for our vibrant society to take up
this most important challenge.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030122161530/http://www.rep.org/opinions/op-eds/19.htm
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