Climate Change? Why I Didn’t Care.
June 1st, 2019. I sat in my place of zen in Brooklyn, New York, scrolling through Facebook, when I saw:
Yeah? That would be sad if true.
*scroll*
June 5th. Back on the toilet seat, scrolling again, when I saw another article:
What does “might” mean? Can you really trust the news during Generation Clickbait?
*scroll*
June 9th. This did look compelling, but I didn’t feel it.
I dug a little deeper and learned that Earth has only warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius since 1880. That, spread through the span of my 28 years, felt hardly noticeable. We can handle another 28 or 56 years, especially at the rate of our technological growth…right?
WHY DOESN’T AMERICA CARE ABOUT THE CLIMATE CRISIS?
Why don’t I ever seem to see anything about it in mainstream media? Why didn’t I care about the greatest existential threat to humanity in history?
I mean, I’m a democrat New Yorker who graduated from Tufts University, a liberal arts college where Quidditch was our biggest sport (and still is?). In 2015, I went full millennial by quitting my 9-to-5 job at Oracle to pursue travel filmmaking across 35 countries. I fell in love with the natural world and the beauty it offers. Aren’t I the bleeding heart liberal who should be riled up about protecting Mother Earth?
Outside the US, the world is riled up. 19 of the 20 world leaders in the last major global summit said they were on board. Nearly 200 countries — just about every country in the world — signed the Paris Agreement to fight climate change. Why is America the odd one out? Why are even the democrats calm when the UK just announced a climate emergency? (In just the week I spent revising this article, Canada did too.)
How is it possible that in 2017, 90% of Americans had no idea about the scientific consensus on man-made climate change? And if both the global and scientific consensus is correct, and this is an actual issue, then what the hell is at stake?
BRIDGING THE GAP
Before I begin to answer these questions, I want to bridge the gap from Average Joe to The-House-is-on-Fire Joe. I want to share how my journey started.
On one relaxing night, my girlfriend Maryea and I were playing the pre-Netflix “what do you want to watch?” game. Oh how I love that game. It ended when I remembered seeing a post on Instagram Stories mentioning a new documentary series called Our Planet, narrated by David Attenborough (the guy from Planet Earth…the show). I mentioned the series to Maryea, and we hit play.
We picked the episode “The High Seas”, which reminded us of our happiest experience together: filming thousands of dolphins in Puerto Escondido just a few months previous. The episode brought me back to 4th grade science class, where I learned about the food chain and how small changes lead to big impacts. A temperature change of one degree can mean the sea ice melts, algae under the ice disappears, and krill (small shrimpies) that feed on the algae die in droves. Then everything that feeds on the small shrimpies, from penguins to those dolphins we filmed, starve to death. Ouch.
Thinking through this basic science, I remembered that first article I scrolled past about wildlife populations decreasing by an average of half in the years since my dad was born. What other domino effects are there, and how fast is this happening?
We lose wildlife as carbon emissions increase. The chart below shows that 50% of all carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels has been produced in just the last 30 years.
At this rate, what changes will my future child see at my age? What natural sights have I taken for granted that my kid will never see? What other consequences from a few degrees of warming are there?
CONSEQUENCES
The next day, I opened an app that spark-notes nonfiction books. While Maryea made her coffee, I started my morning with a figurative grain of salt and “Uninhabitable Earth.”
As I read, I said to her, “We’ve only warmed up 1.1 degrees, and it’s caused all that damage we saw in Our Planet last night.” She sipped. I couldn’t tell if she was ignoring me or her hearing aids were not in. (She’s not a cougar, she’s 28 too.)
“Our goal in the 2016 Paris Agreement is 2 degrees, but no one’s on target, so best-case scenario now is 3.2 degrees by 2100. That’ll mean 100 cities flooded, and damn, southern Europe in permanent drought!”
Maryea offered me an unconvincing we’re-screwed face and initiated her obligatory post-coffee ritual, shutting the bathroom door on me.
Oooh, this one sounds scary.
“The worst case is 8 degrees, two-thirds of the world’s cities flooded, and a third of the world will be unlivable by direct heat!” I now yell.
“Arthur, can you let me shit in peace?”
SMALL CHANGES, BIG IMPACTS
“Uninhabitable Earth” shows how everything in the world is interconnected — wildfires, air pollution, rising sea levels, freshwater scarcity, famines, wars, refugee crises, political upheavals. Droughts in Syria led to the rise of ISIS, which led to 2 million refugees, which sparked the rise of right-wing populism in Europe. How will we respond to the 200 million climate refugees expected in 2050? Or to the higher estimate of 1 billion?
Scientists expect all the ice in the Arctic to melt by 2030. That’ll eventually release enough C02 into our atmosphere to double what’s there now. This is one of many domino effects happening now. Bigger ones are coming.
When the Earth was 4 degrees cooler, it was the Ice Age. When it was 4 degrees warmer, oceans were 260 feet higher.
I finished the summary of “Uninhabitable Earth,” then immediately Amazon-Primed the full book, both out of curiosity and hopeful cynicism. I’m skeptical of anything I read, but this sounded too big to ignore.
WHY WAS I STILL SKEPTICAL?
With all this alarming research at our disposal, why is our country divided on the climate crisis? 97% of scientists are in consensus on man-made climate change. The jury is out. Why are we in the US leading the world in climate change denial?
To understand our country’s denial, I began to follow the money. I quickly found myself reading about #2 highest-revenue company in the world, ExxonMobil. It also happens to be the #1 spender on anti-climate advocacy. Fossil fuel lobbying has outnumbered renewable energy lobbying 10:1 since 2000.
Here’s the part that shocked me even more: Exxon predicted exactly the record-high C02 levels and warming we’re seeing today back in 1982. They even raised their oil platforms to account for the rising sea levels they saw coming.
Oil companies don’t need to spend money on ads — if you need gas, you’ll buy gas. Instead, ExxonMobil partnered with the American Petroleum Institute and 650 other massive corporations to develop a multimillion-dollar per year budget targeting the media, policy makers, and science teachers with the goal to instill “uncertainties in climate science”. This purposeful misinformation is crucial to ExxonMobil’s survival. It has also affected me in ways I never imagined.
The fossil fuel industry knowingly employs bogus scientists, think tanks, PR firms, news, college groups, protesters, websites, and even false hope of carbon capture technology, which is still far from plausible — they got me with that one too. The uncertainties paralyze even the believers. Who wants to spread apocalyptic information if they’re not sure? Even if they are certain, who wants to be the one Debbie Downer in a crowd of optimists?
In 2016, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes tweeted about climate change coverage:
In 1980, 80% of Americans accepted that we should do something about the climate crisis. By 2010, that number had shrunk to 48%. It had become a partisan issue despite more research and further consensus among scientists.
In 2018, nightly and morning news in the US spent a combined total of 142 minutes on climate change the entire year.
After I came across “Uninhabitable Earth,” I spent two weeks cross-referencing its statistics about what will happen when the Earth warms by 2 degrees, 4, 5, or 8. I read about how every seemingly-small increase in warmth will spark more domino effects of disaster. Even though sources differ in their exact estimates, the credible consensus is this: we’re screwed.
With that consensus in mind, 142 minutes of coverage in an entire year is disheartening. But things started to change in 2019.
A SPARK OF HOPE
Despite all this, I feel optimistic about our future. In the UK, 6 months of youth protests and efforts from Extinction Rebellion (XR) brought about the first national climate emergency in the world.
Yesterday, I attended my first XR chapter meeting in NYC. It was a small meeting, and the facilitator ended her summary of the chapter’s 5-month history by stating that earlier that same afternoon, with pressure from XR, New York City had announced a climate emergency. I had no idea. The room exploded in an uproar of applause.
What I hope we’re seeing is a tipping point in culture, one in which we realizing that climate change is not “like a world war,” as author Bill McKibben wrote.
“It is a world war. And we are losing.”
“During World War II, bombers, tanks, guns, cannons, and engines were cranked out from factories in mere months.”
If the US government managed that, it can build the dozen wind and solar plants per state that will replace fossil fuels.
During World War II, Americans grew their own food, planting 20 million “victory gardens” in 4 years. Women turned out to factories in droves to contribute to the war effort while their husbands risked their lives in uniform. During the XR meeting I attended, my mind wandered to those civilian-level war efforts. Each department leader shared how we need every skill. Accountants, dancers, programmers, and even climbers gathered to work toward a common goal which I can say, without hyperbole, will determine the fate of humanity.
The world is run by money, and money is sleeping with fossil fuels. The only thing stronger than money is awareness — enough awareness to spur meaningful action.
My journey started with seeing an Instagram Story. This led to short documentaries on Netflix, then YouTube videos, then articles, books, and Facebook groups. And, finally, the real-life groups which have took me out of my lackadaisical bubble. A month later, I’ve written this article you’re reading as my prep-work for a short documentary I’ll release this summer.
If you can share existing content, create content, show up for a protest, vote, donate to change makers, or just talk with one friend, then together we can create a movement. If the youth in UK could do it, we can too.
