If we are not half-way to zero emissions in the next ten years, we are fucked. (Not doomed, of course, but fucked—important distinction.)
Half-way to 0 emissions means we must start NOW.
This is the most consequential election in human history due to THE #CLIMATECRISIS.
2/n
Everyone who follows me on Twitter knows this, of course.
But voters still don't.
We are failing.
3/n
We weren't going to release this yet, but I'm going to say here that our polling at @EndClimtSilence shows that voters don't even have a sense of what a safe level of global warming might be.
These 1.5 / 2 C distinctions are almost meaningless in public discourse.
4/n
I don't know what else to say right now, except to plea that if a politician or an activist says something like "we have 12 years to save the world," I beg of you, PLEASE don't jump down their throat!
Every single person alive today will be much better off, and our children might actually survive, if voters hear messages that might lead them to overestimate the danger we're in, even fear that we're doomed, *as part of the communication of an actual action plan*.
6/n
I just cannot fucking believe that in 2020 climate change is STILL on the bottom of the fucking list of pressing issues.
This is forcing me to rethink my activist strategy moving forward. Profoundly. I mean, what else is there to do? What's been happening so far is not working.
China's State Counsel has announced that provinces will be graded on their efforts to peak emissions before 2030.
"Authorities ranked as making unsatisfactory progress ... could be subject to disciplinary processes if issues aren’t rectified." 💥
🧵
In The Language of Climate Politics, I wrote about how this accountability was enacted in the 2021 "1+N Documents," China's whole-of government, whole-of-society policy to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060.
👇
This is the implementation of this provision in real time.
2/n
As happy as I am by that China (or any nation) might actually create a net-zero economy in time to halt warming at a relatively survivable level, I am also worried that the authoritarian country who controls key global supply chains seems likely to get there first.
3/n
@NoemaMag What is China's climate policy? Called the “1+N” framework, it's an all-of-government, all-of-society blueprint for the country’s decarbonization. Its foundational documents were enacted in 2021.
3/n
🚨Do NOT talk about solar geoengineering as a climate "solution."🚨
1/n
As people start to panic—and as others advance the next phase of the fossil-fuel agenda—we're now seeing a lot of talk about the need to research solar geoengineering (SG).
Fine. I actually agree that SG should be researched systematically.
2/n
But what that research needs to establish is precisely whether solar geoengineering is or is not a solution: if and how much it cools the planet and whether its dangers (or "trade-offs," if you're disingenuous) will allow for deployment or not.
I'm currently on vacation, but I must pop in to say: the DOE letter calling increased LNG exports “neither sustainable nor advisable" is a VERY, VERY BIG DEAL.
This is the first time a Dem administration has come out against expanding a fossil fuel.
"The letter is expected to accompany a study of the economic, national security and climate effects of approving new natural gas export terminals to be issued within days by the DOE."
According to the letter, the study finds three things...
2/n
First the study finds that, although it generates “wealth for the owners of export facilities” and jobs across the supply chain, exporting more LNG causes domestic wholesale methane gas prices to increase an estimated 30%.
I am baffled by this opening claim in @TimothyDSnyder's New Yorker piece on Trump's fascism.
Trump's entire campaign was fueled by empathy for white men. It explicitly advanced the promise to improve their lives through his power as Leader ("I will fix it.")
1/n
The US *has* been destroyed — economic inequality, lack of eduction or culture outside churches, crumbling infrastructure, the slow poison of social media in the body politic — has made town after town a decaying shadow of its former self.
2/n
Yes the neoliberalism that catalyzed this decline was introduced by Reagan and best advanced by Republican policies, but, of course, the truth is not the point — especially because in this case it's a half truth. Clinton and Obama are both neoliberals.
3/n