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Archive for the ‘Climate change’ Category

Climate Action Week: What to watch for

Posted in Climate change, Eco-culture, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , on September 16, 2019 | 3 Comments »

As people around the world prepare for Global Climate Strike Week (Sept. 20-27) and for the UN Climate Action Summit in New York City on Sept. 23, here are some thoughts and sources to help us think about what’s at stake, what’s possible, and what we can do. This blog may be updated as needed, […]

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So, here we are…

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Spirit matter, tagged , , , , , on September 8, 2019 | Leave a Comment »

Wow, what a reaction the article described here has gotten… This version includes a follow-up comment below. Jonathan Franzen’s “What If We Stopped Pretending?” articulates an important point about hope and hopelessness in the face of climate change. Franzen suggests that an “all-out war on climate change” no longer makes sense because the scenario for […]

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Green new dealing it…

Posted in Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 9, 2019 | 21 Comments »

For someone who teaches media and environment, it’s heartening to see people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and one of her advisors, Cornell legal star Robert Hockett, break through the media din. Even Tucker Carlson had to admit that “it’s nice to have a smart person” on his show to explain things. (Students, take note.) First, Ocasio-Cortez:

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Vermonters & climate change

Posted in Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2018 | 3 Comments »

I was interviewed yesterday by the local CBS-affiliated WCAX news show on the topic of how to motivate Vermonters to take action on climate change (while Bernie Sanders and Cornel West were speaking just up the road). What was used of our interview was fairly minimal, so I thought I would share the notes I […]

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Denial, incompetence, & depravity

Posted in Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 28, 2018 | 3 Comments »

For many, President Trump’s babbling and incoherent responses to last week’s National Climate Assessment (“I’m too smart to believe it, just look at our air and water and what those other countries are doing…”), following on from his even less coherent responses to California’s wildfire tragedies (“They should rake more, like the Finns”), merely reconfirm that […]

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Heads in the sands

Posted in Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , , on November 25, 2018 | 1 Comment »

It’s not surprising that the Trump administration would wish to bury the nearly 1700-page Fourth National Climate Asessment, Volume 2: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States, a report written by over 300 scientists representing 13 federal agencies, by having it released on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when most Americans are too […]

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Feverish world, or ecotopia now?

Posted in Climate change, Manifestos & auguries, tagged , , , , , , , on November 21, 2018 | 6 Comments »

Feverish World (2016-2068): Arts and Sciences of Collective Survival was premised on the acknowledgment that the coming decades will be feverish in more ways than one — climatologically, politically, economically, militarily — and that the arts will be essential in helping us come to terms with that feverishness. In my comments opening the symposium, I laid […]

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Latour’s terrestrial project

Posted in Climate change, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , on October 28, 2018 | 2 Comments »

Review of Bruno Latour, Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2018. Down to Earth is in significant part a restatement of Bruno Latour’s theorizing over the last few decades, made more incisive in the light of Trumpism (and other illiberal populisms) and brought to bear specifically on the moment of […]

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Skipping an Earthbeat

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Science & society, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2018 | 4 Comments »

Reading Bill McGuire‘s 2012 book Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes, I came across this description of the annual “pulse” called an “Earthbeat,” which is supposedly responsible for Earth’s preference for volcanic eruptions between November and April (also known as “volcano season”): rather like a beating heart, the Earth changes […]

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The 5 D’s

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Manifestos & auguries, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2018 | 3 Comments »

… that might get humans to pull through the next few centuries relatively intact as a species (if not undiminished or unscathed): Decarbonization, Deplasticization, Demilitarization, Decolonization, and Demographic Transition. The first, Decarbonization, entails a dramatic reduction in industrial production of atmospheric carbon (and other greenhouse gas) emissions. It will keep conditions for the flourishing of […]

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Rant for the day

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 14, 2017 | 6 Comments »

Let’s face facts: Life in such cold climates as the one I live in (it was 8°F/-14°C here this morning) would hardly be possible, for us in such numbers as we are, without fossil fuels. The harnessing of fossil fuel energy has enabled tremendous innovation — innovation that, if managed well, could help us get […]

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This IS nature, guys…

Posted in Climate change, Eco-culture, tagged , , , , , , , on October 16, 2017 | 21 Comments »

There is an irony in The Nature Conservancy’s headline heralding a “new study” that “finds nature is vital to beating climate change.” The sub-title adds that “Nature could cost-effectively deliver over a third of greenhouse gas emissions reductions required to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.” For one thing, what is the “nature” that would […]

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