Can Rivals Work Together to Address the Climate Crisis?
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Hello readers,
We’re excited to bring you the latest edition of The Current Climate newsletter!
In case you’re new to the publication, our goal with this monthly newsletter is to not only highlight the amazing work of our writers, but also to bring you important climate- and environment-related current events from around the world that you may have missed.
We hope that this newsletter serves as an additional tool to ensure the climate crisis remains at the forefront of our minds, rather than an afterthought.
Top Stories from Climate Conscious
Each month, we highlight some of the top stories from the publication based on the number of views/reads, curation, trends, and relevance to current events.
Debbie writes, “The more someone tries to sway us with facts, the more convinced we are that they are a part of the hoax — a psychological concept known as the backfire effect.”
Her article offers some great suggestions for how to successfully engage with climate skeptics who may be your coworkers, friends, family, or neighbors. One of the most impactful of her suggestions may be trying to tell a story of what’s happening to our climate rather than overloading the person you’re trying to convince with facts that are easy to forget and don’t engage the same parts of our brain as when we tell a story. Importantly, when trying to have a conversation about climate change she says, “Always maintain an open approach and show interest in where the person is coming from. Adopting an adversarial or mocking tone will only cause them to retreat into backfire mode.”
Check out the story here: 8 Ways to Successfully Engage with a Climate Change Skeptic
Stephanie Burns asks, “Sending money to families sounds good — but what does it have to do with combating climate change?”
She explains herself by discussing Canada’s current carbon dividend policy stating, “It’s a simple but powerful concept: Polluters pay a fee on carbon pollution, which gets paid back to families as a carbon dividend.” Carbon dividends are one of the proposed economic solutions to reducing carbon emissions that President Biden and Congress could put into law. She also compares carbon dividends to another popular solution: a Clean Energy Standard (CES). Overall, a carbon dividend would cover more emissions than a CES, pay money directly to families, and has a more transparent cost. A climate dividend is supported by environmental groups, Democrats, Conservatives, and even American automakers.
Check out the story here: Biden’s COVID Relief Plan Hints at a Way to Tackle Climate Change
Desiree wrote a great piece on permaculture explaining its importance in tackling climate change. She takes scientific terms and concepts and discusses them without being overly technical. She writes:
“Our connection to nature is so mighty important to unleash our own vast wisdom. So, we study the philosophy of Deep Ecology. We come to understand deep down in our hearts and guts that we are part of nature. Not above it, not ruling over it. Part of it. And that it’s time to play our human role in the bigger picture with modesty and wisdom.”
Check out the story here: A Permaculture Perspective on Dealing With Climate Change
Wilson writes, “Mitchell Harley doesn’t believe in monsters. But on arriving in the office on a crisp Monday morning in May 2016, what he saw made his hair stand on end — a monster of a storm was on its way.”
His gripping story details how scientists learn from storms like the one that hit Australia hard in 2016 to not only understand the physics of these storms better, but to use this information to predict how future storms might impact coastlines including the resulting erosion and damage to infrastructure. Additionally, having both pre- and post-storm data can help scientists better analyze the future impacts of climate change when it comes to rising sea levels and changing storm patterns that will be important for coastal climate adaptation efforts.
Check out the story here: Anatomy of a Monster Storm
Current Climate News
Here’s what’s happening in our world today:
Here’s how Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan addresses climate change (CNBC)
With the American Rescue Plan Act (i.e., COVID-19 stimulus package) now passed with checks being sent out to millions of Americans, all eyes are now on the Biden administration’s next big legislative proposal — an infrastructure proposal that could make a huge difference in the fight against climate change. Some of the highlights include funding for:
- Making the electric grid and other infrastructure resilient against future climate impacts
- Subsidizing electric vehicles (EVs) for consumers
- Boosting EV manufacturing (including EV components)
- Retrofitting homes to be more energy-efficient, especially for communities vulnerable to climate impacts
- R&D for climate mitigation technologies like carbon capture and storage
- Establishing a Civilian Climate Corps
- Helping fossil fuel workers transition to new jobs
The proposal is expected to be funded by raising corporate taxes and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and tax credits. As covered in the CNBC article, leaders of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are calling the proposal inadequate and want much more funding for infrastructure and climate mitigation measures.
Biden invites Russia, China to first global climate talks (AP News)
President Biden has invited rivals Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping, along with 38 other leaders to his virtual Earth Day climate summit on April 22 and 23. The invitations run the gamut from “top climate-change sufferers, do-gooders and backsliders,” including countries such as Bangladesh (“sufferer”), Bhutan (“do-gooder”), and Brazil (“backslider”).
China is currently the “world’s top emitter of climate-damaging pollution” with the U.S. right behind at № 2 and Russia at № 4. Biden hopes that this large stage will encourage other international leaders to announce their own stricter emissions targets. Discussion over policies such as setting prices on carbon emissions and re-imagining transportation and power sectors are expected.
Japan’s famous cherry blossoms bloom early as climate warms (AP News)
Japan’s famous cherry blossom season is here in full force, earlier than ever recorded. March 26 marked peak bloom for the 2021 cherry blossom season in Kyoto, “the earliest since the Japan Meteorological Agency started collecting the data in 1953 and 10 days ahead of the 30-year average.” Environmental scientist Yasuyuki Aono stated that the earliest blooms he has found before now were March 27 in 1612, 1409, and 1236 according to historic documents, diaries, and poetry books from Kyoto.
Shunji Anbe, an official at the Japan Meteorological Agency claims this shift from peak blooms in April to now late March is most likely caused by global warming. Anbe notes that cherry trees are sensitive to temperature changes, impacting their blooming time. According to the agency data, the average March temperature in Kyoto has increased from 8.6 °C in 1953 to 10.6 °C in 2020.
Cherry blossoms, called sakura, have had a significant influence on Japanese culture for centuries and symbolize life, death, and rebirth. Check out the article linked above for some beautiful photos of the current blooms.
Publication Growth
In March, we added 156 followers bringing our total to over 3,760! Thank you to all of our new followers who joined recently and, as always, thank you to those who have followed us since the beginning.
We also added 27 new writers this month! A big welcome to all of our new writers! We want to thank you as well for providing your thoughts, knowledge, and ideas regarding the climate crisis and other environmental issues, and we look forward to reading your stories.
Editors in Need
We’re sad to announce that Jesse Harris, one of our editors who’s been with us for a long time, will be stepping down from his role to focus on other endeavors. We appreciate all the hard work he’s put in to making Climate Conscious a top environmental publication on Medium and wish him all the best!
With Jesse leaving, we’ll be looking for more editors to join our team! We could use some extra help to ensure submitted stories are reviewed and published in a timely manner as well as helping to advertise Climate Conscious stories across our social media profiles.
That someone could be you!
If you’re interested, please fill out our short application form below to be considered, which also includes more details about the role:
Climate Conscious Editor Application
If you’re selected, we’ll email you with next steps.
Thank you for reading, and we’ll see you next month!
Sincerely,
Sean Youra, Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Danny Schleien, Editor
Sandy Barrett, Editor
Cameron Catanzano, Editor
Sarah Woodams, Editor
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