Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy (THRIVE)

TO: Friends & Interested Citizens, FROM: Center for Coalfield Justice, February 1, 2021

Amidst a confluence of devastating crises — the pandemic, racial injustice, economic devastation, and of course climate change — we have a historic opportunity to set our country on a different course in the next few months. But it will take all of us working together to make our voices heard and demand change.

This Tuesday, February 2, at 7 p.m. Eastern / 4 p.m. Pacific, the Green New Deal Network will host a grassroots livestream: “100 Days for Climate, Jobs, and Justice: Winning the THRIVE Agenda.” We hope you can join.

You can …. RSVP HERE!

The THRIVE Agenda includes building a groundswell of support to Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy (THRIVE) Agenda— a bold economic recovery plan to address the intersecting crises facing our nation.

Sincerely, Kristen Locy, CCJ Outreach Coordinator

SOME LEADING GROUPS — The Green New Deal Network is a 50-state campaign with a national table of 15 organizations: Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Justice Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Greenpeace, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indivisible, Movement for Black Lives, MoveOn, People’s Action, Right To The City Alliance, Service Employees International Union, Sierra Club, Sunrise Movement, US Climate Action Network, and the Working Families Party.

U. N. Global Environmental Outlook is the most comprehensive study

From an Article by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, March 13, 2019

“What’s at stake is life, and society, as the majority of us know it and enjoy it today. We have no time to lose.”

A comprehensive United Nations report released on Wednesday found that while global human health is under dire threat from the climate crisis and industrial pollution, there is still a window for bold and urgent action if world leaders would but seize it.

>>> “We are at a crossroads. Do we continue on our current path, which will lead to a bleak future for humankind, or do we pivot to a more sustainable development pathway? That is the choice our political leaders must make, now.” —Joyce Msuya, U.N. Environment

The United Nations Environment Programme’s Sixth Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-6), described as the most rigorous climate assessment released by the international body in the last five years, warned that continued inaction from policy-makers could result in millions of premature deaths from air pollution and other factors throughout Asia, the Middle East, and Africa by mid-century.

The report also highlighted rapidly increasing rates of species extinction. “At present,” the authors note, “42 percent of terrestrial invertebrates, 34 percent of freshwater invertebrates, and 25 percent of marine invertebrates are considered at risk of extinction.”

Without “urgent action at an unprecedented scale,” the report said, the “ecological foundations of society” are at risk of collapse.

Joyeeta Gupta and Paul Ekins, co-chairs of the GEO-6 process, said in a statement that all the technology, policy ideas, and money needed to bring about ambitious global changes already exist.

“What is currently lacking is the political will to implement policies and technologies at a sufficient speed and scale,” they said.

To avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis and ensure a livable future for all, the report calls on policy-makers to focus on transforming the world’s food, energy, and waste systems by:

>> Aggressively moving to slash carbon emissions and investing in green energy;
>> Transitioning to more sustainable forms of food production and less meat-intensive diets; and
>> Creating a “circular economy” that “uses waste as a resource.”

“These transformations will not be easy, but they will offer enormous opportunities for those who are ready to seize them,” the report states. “What’s at stake is life, and society, as the majority of us know it and enjoy it today. We have no time to lose.”

“The science is clear. The health and prosperity of humanity is directly tied with the state of our environment,” Joyce Msuya, acting executive director of U.N. Environment, said in a statement.

“We are at a crossroads,” Msuya continued. “Do we continue on our current path, which will lead to a bleak future for humankind, or do we pivot to a more sustainable development pathway? That is the choice our political leaders must make, now.”

The U.N.’s Global Environmental Outlook comes as bold policy solutions like the Green New Deal are gaining traction in the United States, with one recent survey showing that over 80 percent of Americans support the idea.

The report was released just two days before hundreds of thousands of students in over 90 countries are set to strike to demand that political leaders immediately take action to secure a habitable planet for future generations.

“I think that change is on the horizon and the people will stand up for their future,” 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg told the Guardian.

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EurekAlert! Science News: Air pollution causes 800,000 extra deaths a year in Europe and 8.8 million worldwide

Climate change is real & now here

From an Article by Jon Queally, Common Dreams, August 20, 2018

“Climate change is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences.”

Offering a stark warning to the world, a new report out Monday argues that the reticence of the world’s scientific community—trapped in otherwise healthy habits of caution and due diligence—to downplay the potentially irreversible and cataclysmic impacts of climate change is itself a threat that should no longer be tolerated if humanity is to be motivated to make the rapid and far-reaching transition away from fossil fuels and other emissions-generating industries.

“It is no longer possible to follow a gradual transition path to restore a safe climate. We have left it too late; emergency action, akin to a war footing, will eventually be accepted as inevitable. The longer that takes, the greater the damage inflicted upon humanity.” —David Splatt & Ian Dunlop, report authors

In the new report—titled What Lies Beneath: The Understatement of Existential Climate Risk (pdf)—authors David Splatt and Ian Dunlop, researchers with the National Centre for Climate Restoration (Breakthrough), an independent think tank based in Australia, argue that the existential threats posed by the climate crisis have still not penetrated the collective psyche of humanity and that world leaders, even those demanding aggressive action, have not shown the kind of urgency or imagination that the scale of the pending catastrophe presents.

While the report states that “a fast, emergency-scale transition to a post-fossil fuel world is absolutely necessary to address climate change,” it bemoans the fact that this solution continues to be excluded from the global policy debate because it is considered by the powerful as “too disruptive.” However, the paper argues, it is precisely this lack of imagination and political will that could doom humanity’s future.

As Splatt and Dunlop summarize at Renew Economy, their paper analyzes why:
>> Human-induced climate change is an existential risk to human civilisation: an adverse outcome that will either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential, unless dramatic action is taken.

>>The bulk of climate research has tended to underplay these risks, and exhibited a preference for conservative projections and scholarly reticence.

>> IPCC reports tend toward reticence and caution, erring on the side of “least drama,” and downplaying the more extreme and more damaging outcomes, and are now becoming dangerously misleading with the acceleration of climate impacts globally.

>> Why this is a particular concern with potential climatic “tipping points,” the passing of critical thresholds which result in step changes in the climate system. Under-reporting on these issues is contributing to the “failure of imagination” in our understanding of, and response to, climate change.

“Climate change is now reaching the end-game,” reads the forward to the report by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, “where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences.”

When #climate risks are understated, it’s time to understand “What lies beneath” the scientific reports and policymaking. Download the inside story of #whatliesbeneath http://www.breakthroughonline.org.au — David Spratt (@djspratt) 6:20 PM – August 19, 2018

“It is no longer possible to follow a gradual transition path to restore a safe climate,” write Spratt and Dunlop in an op-ed published in the Guardian on Monday. “We have left it too late; emergency action, akin to a war footing, will eventually be accepted as inevitable. The longer that takes, the greater the damage inflicted upon humanity.”

At the center of their argument, the pair explain, is that while the global scientific community—including the vital work of the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—has been at the forefront of warning humanity about the processes and dangers of human-caused global warming, there has been simply too much “reticence and caution” that has led researchers to downplay the most “extreme and damaging outcomes” that lurk beneath their publicly stated findings and pronouncements.

While this has been understandable historically, given the pressure exerted upon the IPCC by political and vested interests, it is now becoming dangerously misleading with the acceleration of climate impacts globally. What were lower probability, higher-impact events are now becoming more likely.

This is a particular concern with potential climatic tipping points – passing critical thresholds which result in step changes in the climate system – such as melting polar ice sheets (and hence increasing sea levels), permafrost and other carbon stores, where the impacts of global warming are nonlinear and difficult to model with current scientific knowledge.

The extreme risks which these tipping points represent justify strong precautionary risk management. Under-reporting on these issues is irresponsible, contributing to the failure of imagination that is occurring today in our understanding of, and response to, climate change.

“Either we act with unprecedented speed,” Spratt and Dunlop conclude, “or we face a bleak future.”