OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #153, NOVEMBER 13 , 2023

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #153, NOVEMBER 13 , 2023 

From Naomi Klein to Greta Thunberg: Education, Individual Change, System Change, Action

 

Greta Thunberg.  The Climate Book.  Penguin, 2023. Ms. Thunberg grouped the essays of her anthology into five parts, and each Part into three to five parts, writing an introduction for each of the eighteen parts, each an admirable essay of its own. Part One:  How Climate Works Greta: ‘To solve this problem we need to understand it.’ ‘’The science is as solid as it gets.’ ‘This is the biggest story in the world.’ Two: How Our Planet Is Changing. ‘The weather seems to be on steroids.’ ‘The snowball has been set in motion.’ ‘It is much closer to home than we think.’ Three: “How It Affects Us” ‘The world has a fever’. ‘We are not all in the same boat.’ ‘Enormous challenges are waiting.’ Four: What We’ve Done About It. ‘How can we undo our failures if we are unable to admit that we have failed?’ ‘We are not moving in the right direction.’ ‘A whole new way of thinking.’ ‘They keep saying one thing while doing another.’ Five: What We Must Do Now. ‘The most effective way to get out of this mess is to educate ourselves.’ ‘We now have to do the seemingly impossible.’ ‘Honesty, solidarity, integrity and climate justice.’ ‘Hope is something you have to earn.’   Here is one paragraph from her first essay in Part Five.  “I firmly believe that the most effective way for us to get out of this mess is to educate ourselves and others. . . .  Because once you understand the situation we are facing, once you get a sense of the full picture, you will more or less know what to do.  And—perhaps just as importantly, you will know what not to do. “ (324).   Katherine Hayhoe (52): “The [next] step we can each take is simple: use our voices to catalyse action by telling everyone we know how climate change affects us all and what we can do, together, to make a difference.” Like Naomi Klein and Katherine Hayhoe, Greta and the authors of the essays in her anthology offer no easy solution, no magic. Naomi Klein’s  This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014) is divided into 3 parts that keep her message front and simple.  Part One, We live in a dying world which most of us were complicit in killing.  It’s too late to stop climate change, but we can avert the worst.  But (Part Two) not by magic, miracles, miracle makers, not by green billionaires.  So (Part Three) we must change ourselves, change our system, resist the worst, be climate warriors, blockade the polluters, divest from the deniers and deceivers, move from extraction to renewal.     END OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #153, NOVEMBER 13 , 2023              “Deforestation in Brazilian Amazon Fell 68% in April Compared With Last Year.”   May 13, 2023.   "Still a lot more to do but this is the impact of electing an environmentalist like Lula over a right-wing populist like Bolsonaro," said one observer.  Elect candidates who understand the situation we are facing, who possess a sense of the full picture, who know more or less what to do.  And—perhaps just as importantly, who know what not to do.                   THE GREAT UKNRAVELING by Kelly Mulhollan Could have been born when the Mastodons roamed When we all made do with sticks and stones But instead, I showed up just in time For the great unraveling. . . .   And I’m searchin’ all over for the silver lining   Mostly in the dark, but I keep on trying Looking for the light in a world gone blind Trying to hold on to some piece of my mind Maybe we’ll get there just in time For the great turning