LEFT WONDERING: Time To Rebrand Climate Change? - The Lever
LEFT WONDERING: Time To Rebrand Climate Change?
We are excited to re-introduce Left Wondering, our advice column on how to lead an ethical life in an increasingly unethical world. And we are thrilled to welcome our new advice columnist: Joel Stein. Despite his self-effacing introduction below, Stein is a celebrated columnist, journalist, and author, and he’s eager to answer your existential questions — and make you laugh along the way.
Have a question about how to make a personal decision related to climate change, corporatization, politics, wealth inequality, globalization, or other matters that you’d like Joel to answer? Send it to LeftWondering@levernews.com.
I want to do my part to address the world’s most pressing issues. The problem is that I don’t have a lot of skills. I can’t build a machine that removes carbon from the atmosphere or give all my non-existent employees a raise.
The thing I’m good at is giving unwanted advice. And typing. And calling experts who will say things in a smart way that I can translate into a dumb way. I’ve been doing this for three decades as a columnist and reporter. And now I’m going to do it for you. I mean that literally. If you write to me. And I like your letter.
I have spent hours arguing with my wife about whether to recycle plastic with a triangle with a number 4 on it. I spend even more time telling people I drive an electric car and hoping they don’t ask if it’s a Tesla.
I’m frustrated at how much I’m bumbling around guessing as to what the most ethical thing to do is. And I’m hoping we can find out together.
Have a question you’d like me to answer? Send it to LeftWondering@levernews.com.
Dear Left Wondering,
It amazes me that since forever, humans have known that pollution destroys us and nature, yet we continue to use the planet as a sewer. Will we ever make big oil and the rest of the companies internalize these costs? Calling it “climate change” is greenwashing. Do you have a better name for it? I have asked many of the eco orgs and writers and never get a response.
Mahalo,
Harvey Arkin
Dear Harvey Arkin,
Before I come up with a better name for “climate change,” I think it’s more important that we come up with a better name than “Harvey Arkin.” I like “Fletcher Maverick.”
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”