Earth’s On Fire, We're Choking on Smoke, and Voters are Sweating… Over Fucking Egg Prices?!
How the Media and Politics Keep Missing the Point While Our Planet Burns
Confidence is the highest it’s been that 2024 will be the hottest year on record. We will likely eclipse the 1.5°C Paris Accord Agreement. Will that be temporary or have we surpassed it permanently? That will depend on natural variability – i.e. El Nino, La Nina, NAO, AO – the list goes on. You really don’t need to get bogged down by these global patterns, but know that even if it’s temporary, we will be permanently above that 1.5° warming threshold soon. Since the infancy of the US Drought Monitor in 2000, there has never been more of the United States covered in drought conditions. The areas not covered by drought had been flooded by Helene and Milton. See the pattern? It’s all or nothing – a calling card of climate change. As the drought worsens, the Mountain Fire is torching homes in Ventura County; Boston has recorded its latest 80 degree day on record, and Hurricane Rafael rapidly intensified into a major Category 3 storm in November. Despite all that I listed above, somehow, climate barely made it onto the top 10 list of concerns by likely voters.
On average, I give one climate talk per month. (Despite the “right” thinking we climate scientists are getting kickbacks from George Soros, many of us have made a huge financial sacrifice to do this work, because it is important to us, and it is important for our planet.) Leading up to the election, I said the most important climate action we can take is to vote. Well, that didn’t work out as planned. Thursday, I had a scheduled climate talk which had been scheduled 6 months ago. There was nothing I wanted to do less. (I also woke up with a massive migraine, which didn’t help.) I got up, had my coffee, popped an Excedrin and hopped into the passenger’s seat and left for my talk. Thanks to my wife for driving me, otherwise I might have been a menace on the road, trying to drive with a migraine.
I arrived and warned the organizers that I had a migraine. You see, when I get migraine, I get icepick migraine. I don’t know if that is a medical term, but it’s how a doctor explained it to me. Anyway, it feels like an ice pick is being jabbed into your eye. Usually, they result in my having to throw up. There I was, in front of the podium, presentation loaded with an industrial sized trash can at the ready incase I needed to…well, you know.
Attendance was in the dozens, both in person and on Zoom. Thankfully for me, but mostly for them, I held it together and I didn’t throw up. While the mood was somber, I sensed passion, resolve, conviction. I left inspired. We have 1,450 days to use our first amendment right and give this incoming administration hell.
We failed in communicating the impacts and importance of climate change. The media focused on the price of eggs going up 25 cents or gas being a dollar higher (what the fuck), whereas climate change is costing us…every day and not just at the pump or inside the grocery store. A woman approached me at the end of the talk and said the media is failing. Her insurance policy went up 500 bucks last year. The reason? An increasing threat of extreme weather. And why is that? Because of climate change. THAT is a climate story.
Remember the bad air quality a couple of summers back from Canadian wildfires? Emergency Department doctors in Des Moines said they were overwhelmed from having to treat patients with COPD, Asthma and emphysema. THAT is a climate story.
The start of football season has been pushed back in recent years. Student athletes have died on the field due to extreme heat. THAT is a climate story.
When we tell the story of immigration, we focus on the criminals sneaking across the border. Why don’t we tell the story of the ones making the trek because freshwater resources have dried up? True climate refugees. THAT is a climate story.
The US military has reopened an airbase in Iceland. The unit will focus on reconnaissance missions across a largely ice-free Arctic. The new northern frontier is a threat to national security. THAT is a climate story.
I think that if these stories were accurately told from a climate perspective, climate would have and should have ranked near the top for voters.
I leave you with these final thoughts and a hidden message:
Forward is our only choice.
United, we gathered, ready to fight.
Clearly, there’s work ahead.
Knowing the stakes, I/we showed up.
Today, we need to get started.
Resilience is critical.
United, we’ll push back every single day.
Make no mistake: we’ll show up.
Passion, conviction- we will give them hell.
Here is a list of our current membership. You only need to be a paid subscriber to one to qualify for the invitation to the holiday party:
I certainly wish more people would take what you are telling us. The media is probably afraid thinking it would have a negative effect on their ratings. Truth is hard to swallow.
I love the headline!!!!!
I needed a smile after Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning extravaganza -- LOL.
I think one item missing from a lot of Americans mind is water -- not drinking water, but water for crops. We are draining a huge Aquifer in the Western Plains -- (Ogallala Aquifer). See the link below to grasp how many states it feeds -- crops and livestock; not just drinking water.
Climate change is the real deal -- keep telling the story Chris!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer