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A BUDGET: WE HAVE TO HAVE IT - There’s no way around paying the bills. “Reasonable” support will easily do it, and always has. Who can step up and help out? In earnest. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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20 November 19

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FOCUS: Bill McKibben | The Climate Science Is Clear: It's Now or Never to Avert Catastrophe

Bill McKibben. (photo: Wolfgang Schmidt)

Bill McKibben, Guardian UK
McKibben writes: "The one thing never to forget about global warming is that it's a timed test."

Disastrous global heating will soon become irrevocable – but despite politicians’ inaction millions are taking to the streets to fight the planet’s fever

he one thing never to forget about global warming is that it’s a timed test.

It’s ignoble and dangerous to delay progress on any important issue, of course – if, in 2020, America continues to ignore the healthcare needs of many of its citizens, those people will sicken, die, go bankrupt. The damage will be very real. But that damage won’t make it harder, come 2021 or 2025 or 2030, to do the right thing about healthcare.

But the climate crisis doesn’t work like that. If we don’t solve it soon, we will never solve it, because we will pass a series of irrevocable tipping points – and we’re clearly now approaching those deadlines. You can tell because there’s half as much ice in the Arctic, and because forests catch fire with heartbreaking regularity and because we see record deluge. But the deadlines are not just impressionistic – they’re rooted in the latest science.

In the aftermath of the Paris climate accords in 2015, for instance, many researchers set 2020 as the date by which carbon emissions would need to peak if we were to have any chance of meeting the accord’s goals. Here’s an example of the math, from Stefan Rahmstorf and Anders Levermann. Under the most plausible scenario, they wrote, “even if we peak in 2020 reducing emissions to zero within 20 years will be required,” and that is an ungodly steep slope. But if we wait past 2020 it’s not a slope at all – it’s just a cliff, and we fall off it. As the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres put it when she launched Mission 2020, “Everyone has a right to prosper, and if emissions do not begin their rapid decline by 2020, the world’s most vulnerable people will suffer even more from the devastating impacts of climate change.”

Here’s another way of saying it: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported last autumn that if we hadn’t managed a fundamental transformation of the planet’s energy systems by 2030, our chance of meeting the Paris temperature targets is slim to none. And anyone who has ever had anything to do with governments knows: if you want something big done by 2030, you better give yourself a lot of lead time. In fact, it’s possible we’ve waited too long: the world’s greenhouse gas emissions spiked last year, and – given Trump, Bolsonaro and Putin - it’s hard to imagine we won’t see the same depressing thing this year.

Which is why, I guess, it’s a good thing that 2020 is an election year in the US, and that the Democratic party finally seems willing to talk seriously about climate change. If it nominates Sanders or Warren, maybe the kind of aggressive approach that shakes things up is possible. But America is just one country; we also need to pressure our real global government, which has its headquarters not in Washington but in Wall Street. Last year banks increased their already staggering lending to the fossil fuel industry; if that continues there’s no chance of turning this round in time.

If you’re looking for optimism, at least we come into 2020 on a roll. The great climate strikes of this September were the largest demonstration of climate activism in history, with 7 million people in the street. And April 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day – it could be a day for an even more massive outpouring.

The planet is running a hideous fever, and the antibodies – all those protesters – are finally kicking in. It’s a race, and we’re behind, and we better start catching up right now.

We Warned of a Funding Nightmare, It's Here

Saturday, September 21, 2019

FOCUS: Greta Thunberg | Our Planet Is Dying. The Time for Fairytales Is Over.

20 September 19

The situation is very bad and far worse than it needs to be. Why. Yesterday 18,491 people come to Reader Supported News and 15 donated. That kind of response now has us in panic mode.

Assistance needed now.

Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News

WE BADLY NEED A FEW HEROES - What we are facing is a dramatic decline in funding. To run RSN we need roughly 700 donations a month. It is not much and it is not unreasonable. Who can donate? / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

If you would prefer to send a check:
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20 September 19

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FOCUS: Greta Thunberg | Our Planet Is Dying. The Time for Fairytales Is Over.

Greta Thurnberg. (photo: Sarah Silbiger/Getty)

Greta Thunberg, The Independent
Thunberg writes: "I have a dream that the people in power, as well as the media, start treating this crisis like the existential emergency it is."

In a highly anticipated speech in Congress after travelling half the way across the Atlantic by boat, Greta Thunberg urges US senators to learn from the sacrifices of Martin Luther King and other civil rights activists in the fight against climate change. Here is the transcript

y name is Greta Thunberg, I am 16 years old and I’m from Sweden. I am grateful for being with you here in the USA. A nation that, to many people, is the country of dreams.

I also have a dream: that governments, political parties and corporations grasp the urgency of the climate and ecological crisis and come together despite their differences – as you would in an emergency – and take the measures required to safeguard the conditions for a dignified life for everybody on earth.

Because then – we millions of school striking youth – could go back to school.

I have a dream that the people in power, as well as the media, start treating this crisis like the existential emergency it is. So that I could go home to my sister and my dogs. Because I miss them.

In fact I have many dreams. But this is the year 2019. This is not the time and place for dreams. This is the time to wake up. This is the moment in history when we need to be wide awake.

And yes, we need dreams, we can not live without dreams. But there’s a time and place for everything. And dreams can not stand in the way of telling it like it is.

And yet, wherever I go I seem to be surrounded by fairytales. Business leaders, elected officials all across the political spectrum spending their time making up and telling bedtime stories that soothe us, that make us go back to sleep.

These are “feel-good” stories about how we are going to fix everything. How wonderful everything is going to be when we have “solved” everything. But the problem we are facing is not that we lack the ability to dream, or to imagine a better world. The problem now is that we need to wake up. It’s time to face the reality, the facts, the science.

And the science doesn’t mainly speak of “great opportunities to create the society we always wanted”. It tells of unspoken human sufferings, which will get worse and worse the longer we delay action – unless we start to act now. And yes, of course a sustainable transformed world will include lots of new benefits. But you have to understand. This is not primarily an opportunity to create new green jobs, new businesses or green economic growth. This is above all an emergency, and not just any emergency. This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced.

And we need to treat it accordingly so that people can understand and grasp the urgency. Because you can not solve a crisis without treating it as one. Stop telling people that everything will be fine when in fact, as it looks now, it won’t be very fine. This is not something you can package and sell or ”like” on social media.

Stop pretending that you, your business idea, your political party or plan will solve everything. We must realise that we don’t have all the solutions yet. Far from it. Unless those solutions mean that we simply stop doing certain things.

Changing one disastrous energy source for a slightly less disastrous one is not progress. Exporting our emissions overseas is not reducing our emission. Creative accounting will not help us. In fact, it’s the very heart of the problem.

Some of you may have heard that we have 12 years as from 1 January 2018 to cut our emissions of carbon dioxide in half. But I guess that hardly any of you have heard that there is a 50 per cent chance of staying below a 1.5 degree Celsius of global temperature rise above pre-industrial levels. Fifty per cent chance.

And these current, best available scientific calculations do not include non linear tipping points as well as most unforeseen feedback loops like the extremely powerful methane gas escaping from rapidly thawing arctic permafrost. Or already locked in warming hidden by toxic air pollution. Or the aspect of equity; climate justice.

So a 50 per cent chance – a statistical flip of a coin – will most definitely not be enough. That would be impossible to morally defend. Would anyone of you step onto a plane if you knew it had more than a 50 per cent chance of crashing? More to the point: would you put your children on that flight?

And why is it so important to stay below the 1.5 degree limit? Because that is what the united science calls for, to avoid destabilising the climate, so that we stay clear of setting off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control. Even at 1 degree of warming we are seeing an unacceptable loss of life and livelihoods.

So where do we begin? Well I would suggest that we start looking at chapter 2, on page 108 in the IPCC report that came out last year. Right there it says that if we are to have a 67 per cent chance of limiting the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we had, on 1 January 2018, about 420 Gtonnes of CO2 left to emit in that carbon dioxide budget. And of course that number is much lower today. As we emit about 42 Gtonnes of CO2 every year, if you include land use.

With today’s emissions levels, that remaining budget is gone within less than 8 and a half years. These numbers are not my opinions. They aren’t anyone’s opinions or political views. This is the current best available science. Though a great number of scientists suggest even these figures are too moderate, these are the ones that have been accepted by all nations through the IPCC.

And please note that these figures are global and therefore do not say anything about the aspect of equity, clearly stated throughout the Paris Agreement, which is absolutely necessary to make it work on a global scale. That means that richer countries need to do their fair share and get down to zero emissions much faster, so that people in poorer countries can heighten their standard of living, by building some of the infrastructure that we have already built. Such as roads, hospitals, schools, clean drinking water and electricity.

The USA is the biggest carbon polluter in history. It is also the world’s number one producer of oil. And yet, you are also the only nation in the world that has signalled your strong intention to leave the Paris Agreement. Because quote “it was a bad deal for the USA”.

Four-hundred and twenty Gt of CO2 left to emit on 1 January 2018 to have a 67 per cent chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees of global temperature rise. Now that figure is already down to less than 360 Gt.

These numbers are very uncomfortable. But people have the right to know. And the vast majority of us have no idea these numbers even exist. In fact not even the journalists that I meet seem to know that they even exist. Not to mention the politicians. And yet they all seem so certain that their political plan will solve the entire crisis.

But how can we solve a problem that we don’t even fully understand? How can we leave out the full picture and the current best available science?

I believe there is a huge danger in doing so. And no matter how political the background to this crisis may be, we must not allow this to continue to be a partisan political question. The climate and ecological crisis is beyond party politics. And our main enemy right now is not our political opponents. Our main enemy now is physics. And we can not make “deals” with physics.

Everybody says that making sacrifices for the survival of the biosphere – and to secure the living conditions for future and present generations – is an impossible thing to do.

Americans have indeed made great sacrifices to overcome terrible odds before.

Think of the brave soldiers that rushed ashore in that first wave on Omaha Beach on D Day. Think of Martin Luther King and the 600 other civil rights leaders who risked everything to march from Selma to Montgomery. Think of President John F. Kennedy announcing in 1962 that America would “choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”

Perhaps it is impossible. But looking at those numbers – looking at the current best available science signed by every nation – then I think that is precisely what we are up against.

But you must not spend all of your time dreaming, or see this as some political fight to win.

And you must not gamble your children’s future on the flip of a coin.

Instead, you must unite behind the science.

You must take action.

You must do the impossible.

Because giving up can never ever be an option.

Do Not Let RSN Struggle for Basic Funding

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

FOCUS: Bill McKibben | We've Run Out of Elections to Waste - This Is the Last Chance to Make a Difference on Climate Change

14 May 19

You collectively have the power to ensure that a truly independent voice can stand in opposition to the commercial giants. Drop your drop in the bucket.

Don’t wait.

Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News

WE NEED "SOME" MONEY TO RUN IT - HELP! - We have to have some money to run this process. We have a large dedicated readership, but the donations - only - come in when the situation turns absolutely dire. We should not be struggling like this for basic funding. Respectfully. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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14 May 19

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FOCUS: Bill McKibben | We've Run Out of Elections to Waste - This Is the Last Chance to Make a Difference on Climate Change

Bill McKibben. (photo: rightlivelihood.org)

Bill McKibben, Guardian UK
McKibben writes: "I'm no expert on Australian politics - I don't know all the cross-currents that will determine this week's balloting."
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911 CALL FOR DONATIONS - It the 24th day of the month and enough money to meet operating costs simply is not coming in. We are running out of time and money. Some people are donating. They are trying. But most of the people who come to Reader Supported News are not. Crisis mode on. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

Sunday, November 25, 2018

MUST READ! FOCUS: Bill McKibben | A Very Grim Forecast

24 November 18

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FOCUS: Bill McKibben | A Very Grim Forecast

Bill McKibben, The New York Review of Books

EXCERPT:

The engineers have continued to make remarkable advances, and the price of a kilowatt generated by the sun or wind has continued to plunge—so much so that these are now the cheapest sources of power across much of the globe. Battery storage technology has progressed too; the fact that the sun goes down at night is no longer the obstacle to solar power many once presumed. And so vast quantities of renewable technology have been deployed, most notably in China and India. Representatives of cities and states from around the world gathered in San Francisco in September for a miniature version of the Paris summit and made their own pledges: California, the planet’s fifth-largest economy, promised to be carbon-neutral by 2045. Electric cars are now being produced in significant numbers, and the Chinese have deployed a vast fleet of electric buses.

McKibben writes: "Though it was published at the beginning of October, Global Warming of 1.5°C, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is a document with its origins in another era, one not so distant from ours but politically an age apart. To read it makes you weep not just for our future but for our present."
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