Thread by @GabeFilippelli

The Heartland doesn’t care whether you call it Global Warming or Climate Change—it needs climate solutions now
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Some basic facts have become crystal clear over the past decade. Climate change is here. It is destructive. And we have done very little to control it. As a climate scientist and a director of an institute @Prepared4Change @IUImpact that proffers climate solutions to towns and

cities in the Red state of Indiana, it might seem that I am on the front lines of several battles. But I can tell you that national partisan politics plays little part in how Indiana Mayors actually grapple with real climate problems, like sewer overflows from increasingly

frequent extreme rainfall events, or delayed crop plantings from the same, or crop failures from extreme summertime temperatures. The Midwest is not immune to climate woes.

While most of the climate focus in the US is on the right and left coasts, with hurricanes and storm

surges battering the former and extreme droughts and wildfires the latter, the Midwest is grappling with its own climate headaches. Talk to any Indiana farmer about weather over the past decades, and they will tell you the story of climate change, even if those words do not come

out of their mouths. And they will tell you things are getting worse, and the solutions are few. Meanwhile, talk to any scientist or climate activist, and they will tell you that carbon emissions have to be drastically reduced, now, to maintain any semblance of a planet that our

species evolved to live on. They are both right, but working on very different timelines.

The climate scientist recognizes that we have blown through most of our remaining “stable budget” for climate emissions, and that we need to reduce emissions sharply in the decades ahead of

us. Meanwhile, talk to any Mayor in the heartland and they will tell you that their towns are experiencing 500 year floods, and 1,000 year floods…within several years of each other. It needs little statistical prowess to understand that this is climate. But statistics aside,

they do need immediate solutions to deal with the corn and soybeans that can’t be planted in sodden fields, or the flooding that inundates their downtowns and backs up sewer drains in their own homes.

If you look past the Red state, anti-science stigma that is portrayed on the

national stage, you will see Republican Mayors pulling up their sleeves to deal with climate problems, and even calling them by that name. Mayor Jim Brainard is a Republican representing the wealthy, conservative-leaning and well-educated city of Carmel, a bedroom community

of Indianapolis. Jim knows about and is seriously concerned about what the science of climate change is revealing, but he also knows that his town needs beautiful, sustainable, and climate resilient infrastructure to survive and thrive. He spends little time proselytizing about

climate, but a lot of time talking about how the innovations he has brought to the town, such as energy- and life-saving traffic roundabouts and climate-aware zoning, have made his town more vibrant, more attractive, and more profitable.

As a climate scientist and activist

I will never stop shouting “stop the carbon emissions” from the rooftops, as it has already led us down dangerous climate paths. But the Biden Administration’s refocus on climate change can’t end with rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement and slowing carbon emissions over the

coming decades. We as a country have already largely been meeting some of the national targets set out in Paris by efficiencies and energy production transitions. Meanwhile our fields and towns are flooded by climate change that is already locked in, a situation that will

continue to worsen as the painfully slow process of a just transition plays out.

The “solutions” to climate change can’t just be global goals to reduce carbon emissions, but also need to include substantial local investments in climate-aware infrastructure and climate-forward

zoning. These are real, tangible approaches to dealing with climate change that is already here. Dealing with the climate mess now is not giving up on climate mitigation. It is not climate DeNihilism, an amazing term coined by @MaryHeglar , nor the type of climate paralysis

described by @MichaelEMann , a Distinguished Professor at Penn State, in his book #NewClimateWar. Any good Indiana Mayor worth his (yes, most are still male) salt will tell you—if it saves a few dollars now, it makes good Hoosier sense

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