What if Everyone Did Something to Slow Climate Change?

PRESENTED BY SIBLEY’S IMPOSSIBILITY CUBE

Genevieve Guenther, author of the new Language of Climate Politics, explains to the New York Times’s Alina Tugend how individuals can change their behavior to help combat the climate pollution that is burning our planet (more on that below):¹

People around the world are putting Guenther’s advice into action. Youth activists with the Sunrise Movement and survivors of California’s recent Bridge Fire staged a protest in front of Kamala Harris’s home on Monday, placing a couch destroyed by the fire in the street, calling for her to visit their burned-out neighborhoods and deliver real climate action.

“Our young leaders have grown up only knowing the climate crisis. They know what is at stake for their future,” Harris responded in an online statement.

And thousands are taking action at Climate Week NYC, including the Climate Hawks Vote activists protesting the appearance of climate denier Kevin Roberts and oil CEO Vicki Hollub at the New York Times Climate Forward summit today, and the Green New Dealers gathering for a happy hour in the evening. And Guenther will be speaking about her book with reporters Kendra Pierre-Louis, Amy Westervelt, and Bill McKibben tonight.

As extreme weather disasters accelerate, American political views on climate change are diverging, with conservative Republicans hardening their climate denial even as they worry about extreme weather and Democrats’ concern rising. The growing effort to organize extreme weather survivors is the topic of a panel this morning in New York City.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta started Climate Week NYC off with a bang, filing a lawsuit against ExxonMobil — the petro-polymer giant — for “deceiving the public about the potential for plastic recycling and creating an environmental blight that has cost the state billions of dollars to clean.” Bonta announced:

About that burning world:

Danielle Bochove, Kyle Kim and Armand Emamdjomeh dig into the Arctic tundra, the Brazilian Pantanal, and the Indonesian peatlands and find vast, unextinguishable fires that are smoldering underground, spewing carbon into the atmosphere at ever faster rates.

Thousands of Florida residents have been forced to evacuate from the path of the extremely rapidly strengthening Tropical Storm Helene, which is on track to become a major hurricane by tomorrow and make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

“Two foreign tourists, a 5-month-old baby and his grandmother, were missing on Tuesday after floods hit Italy’s central Tuscany region overnight, firefighters said.”

“At least three people have died, and more than 10,000 were evacuated, in central Vietnam after catastrophic flooding, authorities said on Tuesday.”

“It appears that global warming has come to the Southern Ocean.”

So it would be good for us to try harder!

The International Energy Agency reports that tripling global renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2050 is within reach, but only with much greater global investment starting now.

This morning at 10 am, the House Science Committee marks up several bills, including H.R. 9723 to reauthorize the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program and H.R. 9710, the Small Modular Reactor Demonstration Act.

Also at 10 am, Senate Commerce interviews the Presidential nominees Carl Bentzel to serve another term as a commissioner on the Federal Maritime Commission, Thomas Chapman to serve another term as a member on the National Transportation Safety Board, and former Mitt Romney advisor Lanhee Chen to join the Amtrak Board of Directors.

At 2:30 pm, Senate Indian Affairs votes on three bills, including S. 2908, the Indian Buffalo Management Act. The committee will also hear testimony on five water and mineral rights bills for Tribes in Montana, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: House Science, Space, and Technology
  Markup of AI, Small Modular Reactor Demonstrations, National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Legislation

• 10 AM: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation
  Nominations of Carl Bentzel for Federal Maritime Commission, Thomas Chapman for NTSB, Lanhee Chen for Amtrak

• 2:30 PM: Senate Indian Affairs
  Hearing on Indian Tribe Water, Mineral Rights, Buffalo, Forest Legislation

Climate Action Today:

• Climate Week NYC

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1  Tugend seems to think it’s better for people to worry about whether they’re composting enough instead. But then, her paper runs greenwashing ads from Big Oil and showers contempt on the power of progressive movements.