Some stories in advance of President Biden’s State of the Union address suggested that its organizing theme was to be the climate crisis. But then Russia invaded Ukraine, and Ukraine dominated the top of the speech. By the time he delivered it, the State of the Union had essentially nothing about the climate crisis.
This is how it always is. There is always something more timely, that requires and gets the priority of attention. And after knowing that the climate crisis is an immense and growing threat for at least a generation, there has still not been an address to the American people by the President of the United States, either from the White House or to Congress, with the climate crisis as its subject. Not one.
It is the second of three reports this year of what some observers say is the last UN assessment that has the potential to do any good, because when it’s time for the next one, it may be too late to prevent the worst from happening.
Some things have changed. The language of the report is stark and direct—there’s less obscurity and compromise. The UN Secretary General has given up all diplomatic language, and indicted those nations responsible for inaction, or not enough action. Coverage in major media was better—the Washington Post was particularly good—though the coverage is not a great deal more widespread. A lot of it, even from more specialized sites, covered it with lists of five or six “takeaways” of their choice, (for example here, and here) but reading several of these covers the major points.
And of course, the Ukraine invasion news buried it all. Its media glare rendered everything else invisible. The same was true when the first part of the report was issued, in the midst of the Covid pandemic.
But it doesn’t take a pressing event of this magnitude to overwhelm climate crisis information. It just takes the latest Beltway/ Internet/social media shiny object. They come and they go, generating immense attention for hours, days or a few weeks, and then winking out, in favor of the next shiny object.
Eventually there will be something so immense that it will become the shiny object—something like the twenty million people dying in a single heat wave that Kim Stanley Robinson described in his novel, The Ministry for the Future. We’ll get a White House address then perhaps, whether or not there’s still time to do what must be done.
Shiny objects are not the only barrier, of course. The lead article in the WPost on last week’s report pointed out another: the most terrifying effects—at least at first-- are likely to happen in poorer countries, and their frequency and power will be felt most later in this century. In other words, as the Post pointed out, when those who are now 55 are dead. It just so happens that the vast majority of wealth and power resides in the hands of older white people in rich countries.
Beyond the glare, much is being done—research, design, local resilience projects, regional organizing, political lobbying. Investment in clean energy is waiting for government action and leadership. There are resources and some infrastructure ready to be organized and activated in a committed effort.
But it will take leadership to organize and activate it. Isn’t it time for the President of the United States to speak to the nation from his desk in the Oval Office, and explain to the American people and the world what these reports say, and what this nation needs to do to address the causes and effects of the climate crisis? What the opportunities and the costs will be, and make this a matter of national purpose? No matter what shiny object is glaring?
The third and final part of the UN assessment is due to be released next month. It may be the last opportunity to do it while it still may matter. At this point, doing it is better than not doing it, regardless of its immediate effect. The climate crisis needs to be the shiny object before it forces itself to be the only shiny object.
