The first major international summit on the climate crisis since the 2016 election is happening now in Bonn, Germany. Reports coming back indicate that resistance to the current US administration's suicidal idiocy on climate is not only widespread, but is morphing into revolt.
The rebellion is both political and actual--that is, action to address the crisis that the US officially denies.
International resistance has been unanimous, as no other country has withdrawn from the Paris climate accords. The pathos of the US position became even more pronounced by the announcement that the hateful regime in Syria was joining the accord, leaving the US the last nation on planet Earth not to at least pretend it is defending planet Earth.
That's the resistance. Apart from the presence and efforts of activists, the rebellion made its first news when US leaders showed up to say the official US government position didn't represent them. Democrats took the early stage. As Politico reported: A handful of Democratic governors and scores of other lawmakers and mayors are mounting an insurgency at the United Nations climate conference here, orchestrating a highly choreographed campaign to persuade world leaders that President Donald Trump doesn’t speak for the United States on climate change."
The rebellion was somewhat bipartisan, with Michael Bloomberg and particularly when mayors, regional and local officials joined it--and some big American-based corporations. The Guardian reported:
A US Climate Action Center has been set up for delegates in Bonn, representing the climate change priorities of several thousand US cities, states, tribes and businesses. Corporate giants Mars, Walmart and Citi are expected to push for action on climate change. The center is in lieu of an official US presence – for the first time, the US government won’t have a pavilion at the annual UN climate summit.
The leader of the pack seemed to be California Governor Jerry Brown, or as Politico called him, President of the Independent Republic of California. In fact California has entered into international climate crisis agreements on its own (including one that predates Paris), as well as leading the US in efforts to address the crisis.
In Bonn, Brown made a case for the practical as well as political rebellion:
“This is not just a top-down structure that we have in the United States,” the governor said. The small crowd burst into applause when he added, “Over time, given the commitments that we’re seeing in this room today, and what we’re seeing around the world, the Trump factor is very small, very small indeed.”
In an interview, he outlines the stakes in a way that few politicians do. "The climate, he went on, “is fundamental. It’s not like dietary requirements. It’s not like a tax measure, or a school curriculum, or many of the issues, even a crime bill. It goes to the essence of being alive, living things. Whether it’s humans or fauna, flora, the basis of life is embedded in this chemical structure, biological structure. And it’s threatened.”
When the current Washington administration tried to use Bonn as a p.r. opportunity for so-called clean coal, it met with vocalized anger. "The Trump administration's effort to pitch coal at the international climate change meeting backfired on Monday, drawing heckling and booing at White House officials and energy industry representatives at a U.S. event."
But Jerry Brown got booed as well, presumably by some of the same people. More than 500 NGOs support the "managed decline" over time of fossil fuel extraction and production, but (as Bill McKibben reports) few political leaders will go even that far. That includes Brown, who "has so far declined to curtail even fracking and urban drilling, the dirtiest and most dangerous kinds," as governor of the third-largest oil and gas producing state in the US.
He is hardly alone in this--Justin Trudeau, the young Canadian p.m. with an heroic image in the US, supports exploitation of western Canada's tar sands oil, which is enough to just about sink all prospects of lowering CO2 emissions. All this is even more urgent with the news that after several years of decline, global C02 emissions are projected to have increased this year.
Update: Moreover, according to this informative history in the Atlantic, Democrats have no clue on how to advance the efforts to address the climate crisis with federal law or policy, should they get the keys back.
The rebellion is fueled by climate crisis news that has very little new about it. It continues to be mostly piling on proof and confirming that consensus projections are being fulfilled in the real world. The only news is that reality is beating those projections in speed and severity, which at this point is also not new.
Yes, a major US study which is so not new that this administration actually allowed it to be issued (to resulting indifference), affirmed that the climate crisis is real, is getting worse and is due to human-caused greenhouse gases.
Yes, the climate crisis is fueling disasters and disease "in possibly irreversible ways," as predicted. Yes, the climate crisis is making mega-storms like Harvey more likely, frequent and violent--and because more global heating is inevitable due to past and ongoing emissions, all this will get worse.
This week, the Union of Concerned Scientists updated their warning of precisely this situation that they first issued 25 years ago in 1992. Some 15,000 scientists from 184 countries participated.
“Humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse,” they write. This letter, spearheaded by Oregon State University ecologist William Ripple, serves as a “second notice,” the authors say: “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory.”
That's another consistent message--that soon it will be too late. Expert opinion these days may vary on what constitutes "soon" or whether it is already too late but it's not very polite to say so.
As I've said before, I have to factor in my age when offering the opinion that it does seem too late to save everything, and maybe to save anything. But even if we can't in the end save something, what kind of person won't even try? Do you want to be that kind of person? That's going to be the test for younger people for now and the future. It's a life's work.
Once resistance and anger and commitment are expressed, that's really going to have to be the core of the rebellion. In the end it will be need to be a quieter, more peaceful, consistent, dedicated rebellion through positive actions, many of them small and repeated.
Such actions--such vocations--include those implied by the 12 steps outlined in this U of Concerned Scientists letter. Not in order of priority--and translated from geek speak-- they are:
7. Reduce human fertility rates through education and voluntary family planning. 8. Increase outdoor nature education for children and everyone else. 9. Shift investments from what destroys the environment to what supports it. 10. Devise and promote new green technologies, phase out subsidies for fossil fuels. 11. Revise economies to reduce wealth inequality and to count the true cost of environmental damage by consumption as well as production. 12. Estimate a human population that the planet can sustain and rally the world to make staying within it a vital goal.
All of those are large-scale goals, ranging from big projects to stupendous changes. But similar kinds of projects and changes, as well as others not directly covered in this list but which are needed and will emerge as crucial, operate on the very local and even individual level, wherever people find themselves.
I’ve come to believe that this work of reimagining is humble, small, often taps feminine energy, is fundamentally indigenous — and local. One way to learn what that means is to ask people who are rebuilding after a major collapse, like those now living in Puerto Rico."
The efforts she briefly describes in this article are effective, responsive and also fulfilling. The language at least may strike some as other-worldly, or more fashionably (and often politically) as "touchy-feely", etc. And there might well be some self-deception involved in the practice, though the efforts are positive. But in general, she's got a very perceptive and relevant point:
"Building together locally is a no-regrets strategy. It releases joy at a time when so many are stressed — just the company of others, engaged in a common purpose, satisfies a deep soul yearning. And if there’s a natural disaster, we’ll need each other to rebuild. Same thing if civilization cracks under the stresses of the climate catastrophe (or from one of the other possible disasters — global or local). If we muddle through with the old power structures intact, local power will prevent the worst abuses, relieve isolation and increase prospects for a society that works for all.
Through this long, hard — but also joyful — work, we may indeed find more and more of our communities becoming more just and ecologically sustainable and maybe even more filled with compassion. And from this foundation, we can build a better country and a better world, rooted in authentic relationships where we live."
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