OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #248, September 15, 2025.

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #248,  September 15, 2025.    Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

THE ONGOING, VARIEGATED RESISTANCE TO OVERSHOOT, WARS, HEAT, TYRANNY.

SEPTEMBER 21:  SUN DAY AND INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE . 

Bill McKibben, Here Comes the Sun.
NCTE’S George Orwell Award Against Doublethink, Doublespeak, Doubletalk.
ACLU’S Legal Actions.
(All of them depend upon us.)

 

“Earth Overshoot Day Reaches Record for Earliest Date” By Paige Bennett.   Edited by Chris McDermott.    EcoWatch.   July 28, 2025.

Earth Overshoot Day is the point in the year when human demand for materials obtained from nature exceeds what the Earth can naturally regenerate in one year. For 2025, Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 24, the earliest it has been since the event was first calculated in 2006.

The Earth Overshoot Day was first launched in 2006 by Andrew Simms, an author, political economist and campaigner, in collaboration with Global Footprint Network, as reported by Sustainability Magazine. Since then, Earth Overshoot Day is calculated and announced annually. Since 2006, the date has come earlier and earlier, signaling just how rapidly human consumption habits are growing and stripping the planet of its resources.

 

 

Bill McKibben.  Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.    Bill McKibben.   WW Norton, 2025.   224 pages.  

From the acclaimed environmentalist, a call to harness the power of the sun and rewrite our scientific, economic, and political future.   Our climate, and our democracy, are melting down. But Bill McKibben, one of the first to sound the alarm about the climate crisis, insists the moment is also full of possibility. Energy from the sun and wind is suddenly the cheapest power on the planet and growing faster than any energy source in history—if we can keep accelerating the pace, we have a chance.   Here Comes the Sun tells the story of the sudden spike in power from the sun and wind—and the desperate fight of the fossil fuel industry and their politicians to hold this new power at bay. From the everyday citizens who installed solar panels equal to a third of Pakistan’s electric grid in a year to the world’s sixth-largest economy—California—nearly halving its use of natural gas in the last two years, Bill McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy. And he shows how solar power is more than just a path out of the climate crisis: it is a chance to reorder the world on saner and more humane grounds. You can’t hoard solar energy or hold it in reserves—it’s available to all.

There’s no guarantee we can make this change in time, but there is a hope—in McKibben’s eyes, our best hope for a new civilization: one that looks up to the sun, every day, as the star that fuels our world.

 Announcing the Winner of NCTE’s George Orwell Award

The NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language celebrates outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse.   2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the award, and today NCTE is announcing this year’s winner: Teaching Honesty in a Populist Era: Emphasizing Truth in the Education of Citizens by Sarah Stitzlein.    

 

ACLU JULY 2025.  Resistance at a Glance Since January 20th:

Total legal actions filed: 146    Total lawsuits filed: 68
Number of federal agencies with whom we have filed FOIA requests: 45

[The struggle for liberty against tyranny is as old as Jamestown, if you remember the European conquest of N. America, and it has waxed and waned, until today our hopes for a democracy are severely threatened and we must depend upon last stand legal resistance by our best organizations like the ACLU and Public Citizen.    But, as in the Weimar Republic when Hitler was taking over institution after institution to gain total Nazi control of the courts legally, the USSC court and many lower courts are already in right-wing Republican hands.  But as the ACLU observes, citizens can still resist individually and through established organizations by organizing, advocacy, and education.    –Dick 8-3]

Dear James,  This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for our nation.

The Trump administration's assaults on our rights and liberties are relentless. But even in the face of these headwinds, resistance is growing. And the ACLU is pressing forward in the courts, as well as through organizing, advocacy, and public education. Litigation is just one of the many tools we're using to push back, hold the line, and create a future grounded in equality, due process, and freedom. And thanks to your ongoing support, that vision remains within reach. . . .