Hi there Green New Dealmakers,
We’re back with a special Sunday-night edition of the newsletter (EXTRA, EXTRA...) because there’s been so much important climate coverage to absorb over these last few weeks...
But first, have you heard our season finale episode of the GenGND Pod?! Featuring, Bill McKibben…
Naomi Klein…
And Varshini Prakash!
If you haven’t yet heard the show, please check it out, if you’ve already listened and enjoyed, would you mind leaving us a rating and review? And if you’ve already left a rating and review, please consider SUPPORTING THE PRODUCTION OF SEASON 2 BY BECOMING A PATRON OF OUR NEW PATREON PAGE!
OK—A bit of good news first, the U.S. is BACK in the Paris Climate Accords! As Bill McKibben tells host Sam Eilertsen in our season finale, the true test will now be what happens at COP26 in Glasgow, “in Paris they got the rhetoric right….but they got all the pledges wrong, if you add them all up the temperature still goes up like 3-3.5 degrees, so this time they have to get the pledging right.” But, as Bill Says, we have a fighting chance of doing that this time around because of the amazing work that movements, scientists, and engineers have done smashing Overton windows on all fronts; “the price of solar power and wind power has dropped 50% since the Paris climate accords. There’s no longer anything really standing in the way of making this rapid transition except vested interests and inertia, and those are difficult forces to overcome, but they’re not hard to overcome like physics or even economics are hard to overcome.”
Events like the Texas energy crisis underscore the amount, and pace, of the work that we have to do to overcome those forces of vested interest in oil and gas infrastructure, free-market inertia, planetary physics and the economics of a privatized, and in this case deregulated, electric grid. As well as the human cost of those forces as they play out in Texas and across the rural South, As Naomi Klein says in her NYT Op-Ed…
This “collapse of a 40-year experiment in free market fundamentalism” has made crystal clear just how desperately we need a Green New Deal. In lieu of government action at the scale of the crisis, what we’re witnessing is the co-author of the Green New Deal Resolution, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, leading by example—with what Naomi Klein called ‘Disaster Collectivism’ in a tweet—raising over $4 million for relief for Texas, and flying to Texas to deliver the money and supplies alongside three of her Congressional colleagues…
AOC also met with and joined members of Sunrise Movement’s Houston Hub…
“Change is happening on the ground as people support people through this crisis.”
If you haven’t yet watched it, that same message echoes throughout this incredible video produced by our friends at Sunrise…
“What if our government was there for us the way we are each other?” We’ve been made to feel that that is a radical question in America. But, as GenGND guest Charles Booker put it…
“You shouldn’t have to crowdfund to offset the failures of an energy grid….We need system level change.” AOC agreed, retweeting, and replying to, Booker’s tweet with “💯%”
Speaking of system level change—we need to stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure, like the Line3 Pipeline, which would transport Tar Sands through Minnesota. We stand in solidarity with and in support of the Indigenous leaders on the frontlines of this pipeline, like Tara Houska—and Giniw Collective and Winona LaDuke and Honor the Earth.
Please Support and amplify their vital work. And for more on the fight to #StopLine3 check out this great new video from More Perfect Union…
MORE ABOUT THE CRISIS IN TEXAS…
WHY TEXAS REPUBLICANS FEAR A GREEN NEW DEAL, by Naomi Klein for The New York Times
THE TEXAS BLACKOUT IS THE STORY OF DISASTER FORETOLD, by Jeffery Ball for Texas Monthly
WHY A POWERFUL WINTER STORM CAUSED BLACKOUTS IN TEXAS, by Alex C. Kaufman
ANALYSIS: THE REAL REASONS TEXAS WENT DARK, by Benjamin Storrow for E&E News
THE TEXAS BLACKOUT IS AN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE DISASTER, by Eric Holthaus for The Phoenix
A GLIMPSE OF AMERICA’S FUTURE: CLIMATE CHANGE MEANS TROUBLE FOR POWER GRIDS, by Brad Plumer for The New York Times
TEXAS CRISIS EXPOSES A NATION’S VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE, by Christopher Flavelle, Brad Plumer & Hiroko Tabuchi for The New York Times
CALIFORNIA & TEXAS ARE WARNINGS: BLACKOUTS SHOW US DEEPLY UNPREPARED FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS, by Maanvi Singh for The Guardian
THE LESSONS OF THE TEXAS POWER DISASTER, by The New York Times Editorial Board
THE LOUISIANA CITY HIT BY TWO HURRICANES LAST YEAR IS SUFFERING IN THIS WEEK’S DEEP FREEZE, by Colleen Hagerty for EARTHER
WE’RE BACK IN THE PARIS AGREEMENT…
U.S. OFFICIALLY REJOINS PARIS ACCORD, VOWING TO MAKE UP FOR LOST TIME, by Dino Grandoni & Brady Dennis for The Washington Post
US OFFICIALLY REJOINS THE PARIS AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE, by H.J. Mai for NPR
BACK IN PARIS PACT, US FACES TOUGHER CLIMATE STEPS AHEAD, by Ellen Knickmeyer & Seth Borenstein for the Associated Press
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE…
‘IT’S CULTURAL GENOCIDE’: INSIDE THE FIGHT TO STOP A PIPELINE ON TRIBAL LANDS, by Sheila Regan for The Guardian
A CLARION CALL TO ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS, by Heather McTeer Toney for ATMOS’s The Frontline
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE, NATIONAL POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN JOIN MEMPHIS PIPELINE FIGHT, by Carrington J. Tatum for MLK 50
COME DREAM WITH ME, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, COLORIZED, 2021, by Nikayla Jefferson for The Nation
U.S. ENERGY REGULATOR TO CREATE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE POSITION, by Timothy Gardener for Reuters
DISHA RAVI: THE JAILED INDIAN ACTIVIST LINKED TO GRETA THUNBERG, by Soutik Biswas for The BBC
IN OTHER NEWS…
‘INVISIBLE KILLER’: FOSSIL FUELS CAUSED 8.7M DEATHS GLOBALLY IN 2018, RESEARCH FINDS, by Oliver Millman for The Guardian
HOW THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY CONVINCED AMERICANS TO LOVE GAS STOVES, by Rebecca Leber for Mother Jones
BUILD NOTHING NEW THAT ULTIMATELY LEADS TO A FLAME, by Bill McKibben for The New Yorker
BIDEN’S CLIMATE TASK FORCE OPENS FOR BUSINESS, AIMING TO RESTORE ‘CREDIBILITY’, by Lisa Friedman for The New York Times
HOW DOES BILL GATES PLAN TO SOLVE THE CLIMATE CRISIS?, book review by Bill McKibben for The New York Times
DO WE NEED MORE SCARY CLIMATE CHANGE ARTICLES? MAYBE., by Kate Yoder for GRIST
THE ENORMOUS RISK OF ATMOSPHERIC HACKING, by Bill McKibben for The New Yorker
HOW A CLIMATE-JUSTICE CHAMPION WON OFFICE IN RURAL, WORKING-CLASS MAINE, by Wen Stephenson for The Nation
WHEN CLIMATE CHANGE & XENOPHOBIA COLLIDE, by Christina Bausson, Leticia Duarte, Ottavia Spagiarri & Sarah Stillman for The New Yorker
TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY?, by Mary Heglar & Amy Westervelt for HOT TAKE