Thread by @ClimateHuman

I'm excited about the People's Convention in a few hours, and I'm honored to be speaking. I want to explain why I support creating a People's Party as we live through warp-speed climate and ecological breakdown. @4aPeoplesParty
peoplesconvention.org

Let me start by saying I think it's crucial to vote Trump out. He's pushing us toward civil war. And building the climate justice movement through direct action would be nearly impossible under climate-denying fascist rule, a risk under a 2nd term of Trump. Vote your conscience.

The People's Party is no threat on Nov 3. We're going to do everything we can to build up the party, and be a force in 2022 and 2024, both by running candidates at all levels and by challenging the DNC from the left. But that doesn't affect Nov. 3. Vote your conscience.

That said, let me cut to the chase: both major parties are beholden to corporations, and have been for decades. The fossil fuel industry literally pays both Republican AND Democratic policymakers to delay action on climate breakdown. Donations, lobbyists, revolving doors. Openly.

The delay has been so effective that now we're at 1.1°C or 1.2°C of global heating and things are really breaking down, fast. The planet and our future well-being can't afford any more delay. We need radically rapid, massive systemic change at the federal level.

You've seen it and felt it yourself. The fires, the storms, the floods, the migrants, the crop failures, the heatwaves. And the science is clear: things will intensify unless and until we radically change course as a society. It's no new normal; it's an escalator.

Things are not under control. This isn't just another issue. All the jargon-filled reports, the speculation over new technologies, the reassuring drops in solar panel prices, the NGOs. The bystander effect, people acting normal. It might seem like it's under control but it's not.

Don't believe me? Google "Greenland ice sheet loss." Google "ocean heat content." Google "global mean surface temperature." Google "sea level rise." Google "Pentagon climate risk." Google "climate tipping points." Things are out of control. We need to change course, fast.

This means we need policies that will destroy the fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuel is what's killing our climate and living Earth; therefore fossil fuel must be stopped. And it must be stopped completely. That means bye bye fossil fuel industry. Death by policies.

Do you think the fossil fuel people will let that happen without a fight? Of course not! They've already been fighting - baldly lying to the public and purchasing politics - and they'll fight 10x as hard. They're crazy rich and they don't give a damn.

I've talked to some of them. They told me "we'll go as fast as our customers want us too." They handed me glossy pamphlets chockfull of greenwashing. We'd be absolute fools to think they're going to do anything other than just what they've been doing for decades.

As long as their money controls our politics, rapid, massive, systemic change is a pipe dream. Instead we get Tom Perez shutting down climate debates. We get "green dream or whatever." We get the DNC putting enormous fossil fuel subsidies back INTO their platform.

And physics isn't fooled for a second by performative gestures. Physics isn't charmed by ripped up speeches. Physics couldn't care less about promises, no matter how well-intentioned. Physics just does its thing, photons interact with nonlinear molecules, the planet heats up.

We must keep building the grassroots climate justice movement, and we must also keep pushing Democrats from the inside to adopt popular progressive policies that help make a better life for all, now and far into the future (thanks, @AOC and squad members present and future).

I think it's ALSO worth a shot to build a new party, one that's 100% free from corporate influence, a party for the people. For workers. For the marginalized. For the voiceless. For the coral reefs and the trees. Not for corporations - for all of us, and for the planet.

Progressive policies have never been more popular, and that energy and those people need a place to go. My entire adult life, I've never felt heard or appreciated in the Democratic party. I'm tired of voting for "the lesser of two evils." So tired.

And I've never been more terrified of climate and ecological breakdown. Our action or inaction in the next few years could determine what this planet is like for millions of years.

To me, this is so much more than politics. This planet is the only place we know of in the universe with life. Fighting on behalf of that beautiful, innocent life is a cosmic calling.

It's an unwelcome thing for a scientist, this political stuff, but I cannot sit idly by.

We are at a bold, historic crossroads. In my opinion, the most important crossroads in American history, if not human history. It calls for bold, historic action. Nothing less will do.