Historic climate devastation demands historic action - The Seattle Times

Historic climate devastation demands historic action | The Seattle Times

I have a confession: Almost every night, I wake up around 3 a.m. with the same gripping fear.

The world as we know it is rapidly coming to an end. Human activity messed with the weather, something so obviously fundamental to our existence that we should have been on guard decades ago, taking action at the first signs of stress.

This summer has not helped my mental state. As I see it, 2023 will likely go down as more than the hottest July ever recorded. Unless something changes, it will be the year when climate catastrophe became incontrovertible and we became oddly blasé. It’s as if the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt had given a speech about farm subsidies.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “This guy needs therapy,” you’re not the first. But consider what U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on July 27: “The air is unbreathable. The heat is unbearable. And the level of fossil-fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy. No more excuses.”

There is a specific, dramatic White House action that could refocus the nation. But first, a little context.

To get some local perspective, I reached out to KC Golden, senior policy adviser at the public interest group Climate Solutions from 2002-18. “We’ve had many Pearl Harbor moments on climate, but this summer takes it to a new level,” he responded.

When advocates first started organizing around climate, Golden said, the communications professionals told them: “’Ease up, it’s too big, you’re just freaking everyone out, break it down into manageable pieces.’ … So every enviro group put ’10 Things You Can Do’ on their websites.”

But people soon became skeptical because small things are only meaningful if there is a wider mobilization that meets the scale of the problem. “We’ve never really had that,” said Golden, adding: “A woman in a focus group once said to us, “I don’t think it’s THAT big of a problem, because nobody’s DOING anything about it.”

That’s not totally true. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act invested about $375 billion to promote clean-energy manufacturing and fight climate change over a decade — the largest federal outlay in history. Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on a conservative effort that would help a future Republican administration dismantle efforts to slow global warming. That’s the political choice we face. On this issue, it couldn’t be any starker.

And what of grassroots efforts to stoke populist fires? Where are the thousands of everyday people out in the streets? Activists point to protests against specific fossil fuel projects such as the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines but concede the buzz — at least since the pandemic — has been lacking.

“People are looking for guidance, I think — and on the whole, I don’t think they’re finding it,” said Emily Johnston, who co-founded 350 Seattle, a local climate group. Johnston was one of the “valve turners,” activists who broke into pipelines and turned the shut-off valves in 2016 as part of a climate protest.

She also took part in a sit-in at Washington Sen. Patty Murray’s office last summer to protest provisions by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin to include fossil fuel projects within the Inflation Reduction Act.

Murray dropped by the editorial board last week, so I asked her if sit-ins and other civic actions help focus lawmakers’ minds.

“I feel urgent about climate and have for a long time. I appreciate that people feel strongly enough about it to take time out of their lives to make sure it becomes of higher-profile interest to everyone,” she said.

Murray then noted the Canadian wildfire smoke that permeated the East Coast last month. “While we were experiencing all the heat here, what D.C. was experiencing was smoke for the first time. And let me tell you, the conversations are changing.”

Are they changing fast and forcefully enough? Will smoke in the nation’s capital spark increased action? Because we all know the heartbreaking devastation at Lahaina, Maui, and Lytton, the B.C. town destroyed by wildfire in 2021, will happen again. It’s just a matter of where, and how many people will suffer.

For his part, Biden appears to be trying to do the right thing in the face of unrelenting opposition. To that end, he consistently emphasizes the economic benefits of clean-energy investments.

It’s time to ratchet up the rhetoric. It’s about acknowledging that our people, our lands are under attack. That’s why so many advocates are pushing Biden to declare an official climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act. That would afford him a range of new powers, including the ability to speed the energy transition and block fossil fuel projects without congressional approval.

In an interview with the Weather Channel earlier this month, Biden said climate change was the existential threat, and he already had declared a national emergency. Later, he clarified to say he had made the declaration, “practically speaking.”

Go all-in, Mr. President. We face obvious peril. Downgrading it does a disservice to all, no matter the inevitable political blowback. A hard stance is necessary to forge national consensus. At stake is our way of life.

Around here, the nights are getting longer. This winter, we will watch for rain (so far this year, we’ve had about 14 inches, well off the average of 21) and hope for snow.

Everyone reading these words will confront the waking nightmare of out-of-whack weather for the rest of their lives. United, we stand a chance. Divided, we fall to ashes.