Right before Xmas New Yorker editor David Remnick called to ask if I'd do a weekly climate newsletter under the magazine's auspices. My 1st reaction was yes: it was where I'd begun writing about all this in my early 20s and now I was...older if not wiser newyorker.com/home/newslette…
But my 2nd reaction was, what about this newsletter HEATED that @emorwee had just launched, and that I was very much enjoying. Would it damage her effort? So I asked, and she graciously said she thought not: "there's plenty of space out there for more newsletters...Hell yeah!"
So I decided to proceed--I'm not competing with HEATED, which you can sign up for here: heated.world And since mine is free, you will have money to subscribe to hers, and since mine is weekly you will have time to read her daily output
What I'm going to try and do in The Climate Crisis (titled with a nod to the storied newspaper that W.E.B. DuBois began 110 years ago for the NAACP) is provide some ongoing context to the climate story--I have, perhaps, some idea of how new developments fit into the big picture
So each week a short essay, and some links to things that seem important. But I also want to highlight the powerfully diverse voices that are emerging with each passing week from all over the globe. So there will be a regular short interview: "Pass the Mic."
If you read my twitter feed occasionally, you'll know it's largely devoted to saying thanks to people for the good work they're doing, and trying to surface that work so others can see. So I'll be attempting to do that in a slightly more formal way in this newsletter.
It's been a while--really, since I left the New Yorker at age 26, which would have been, um, 1986--that I've had a regular weekly opportunity like this. So I hope I'm still capable of it. If you're interested, you can sign up here. newyorker.com/home/newslette…
And I hope you will send me things and people you think need highlighting. And remember to subscribe to @emorwee's valiant effort too!
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HARVARD JUST DIVESTED FROM FOSSIL FUELS.
Because great activists never let up.
They don't use the word 'divestment,' but they said they have no direct investments left, will make no new ones, and that their indirect investments are in 'runoff mode' and will be allowed to expire
Yes, it's messy, and somewhat incomplete--the wonderful campaigners @DivestHarvard have a good response showing the places the university still must move. But the richest school on earth, which in 2013 pledged never to divest, has been forced to capitulate
I'm not even going to try and list the endless wonderful people who worked on this remarkable campaign--they are legion. And they have dealt a stunning blow to the fossil fuel industry. The smart money--even the conservative smart money--is fleeing Big Oil
An overlong thread of personal info, with one or two twists at the end.
First piece of 'news': I'm starting a free substack newsletter of my very own. It's going to be called The Crucial Years, because--well...here we are, between a rock and a hot place
That means today's installment of my New Yorker "Climate Crisis" will be the last, though I'll still write regularly for the magazine. So many thanks to everyone--esp. Virginia Cannon--who made it a pleasure, and to all those I got to pass the mic to! newyorker.com/news/annals-of…
So why am I joining @emorwee, @EricHolthaus , @drvolts, and so many others who pioneered this new form? In part because I'm also swinging back to more organizing. In fact, consider this the announcement of a *very* soft launch for ThirdAct.org thirdact.org
Guys, we've crossed the marsh and the Enbridge crossing point of the Mississipi is now occupied. I think this camp will last until Line 3 is stopped.#StopLine3
The scene here is solemn and joyful. Treaty rights need respecting and so do the laws of physics. Instead of 800,000 barrels of oil crossing this wetland there are thousands of people.
Indigenous leaders welcoming visitors now, and reminding them to go back to their communities and spread the word. #StopLine3@IENearth
Walloping Wolverines!! Huge divestment news out of Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan--as heartland a school as you can imagine--announces plans to stop investing in fossil fuels! record.umich.edu/articles/u-m-s…
This is crucial because a) it's a big big endowment b) it's arguably, along with the already divested UC system, America's foremost public university and c) most of all, it's a huge reversal, won by courageous students. Here's what I mean:
When UMich refused to divest in 2015, the oil industry celebrated--indeed, they blazoned the words of its president, Mark Schlissel, across the front of their anti-divestment website, and they've been there ever since.
So Biden's climate/energy/environment team is mostly complete, and on balance there's never been anything like it in U.S. history. With people like @RepDebHaaland and @GinaNRDC and @JohnKerry and @JenGranholm, there's high profile and seriousness of purpose
There are weaknesses (Vilsack at Ag strikes me as the only downright dud, a wasted pick that shows no understanding farming must change), and questions (Regan at EPA was a fan of burning wood pellets when he was in NC.) And they have to overcome Joe Manchin and Mitch McConnell.
But there now seems the real possibility of concerted action across the federal government to make sweeping change--if, of course, there are movements prodding, and opening up space, and cheering accomplishments to build momentum. That's the work of the rest of us.
So, every once in a while by pure chance, one knows something about something in the news. Today that's me--it's about a guy named Brian Deese who is up for an econ job in the Biden administration. But it's a longish story.
I've spent most of my life living in rural America, much of it in a remote, poor, red, and exceptionally beautiful corner of upstate New York. Among other things, I taught Sunday School in the basement of the Methodist church in our town of 300
Four sisters were in that class, beginning when they were very small; my wife and I got to know them all well, and their parents. All four managed to make it out to college in Middlebury VT, which was exceptional for our community. (I followed them there some years later).