Russ Vernon-Jones

love, justice, and climate change … I know you can make a difference.

Collective action

Blog FEATURED 

Solving Humanity’s Shared Climate Crisis

russvj 2 Comments ,

A great many of us care about the climate crisis. Many of us have taken steps to reduce our carbon footprints. Many of us have advocated for good climate policy at the local, state, and national levels. We have voted for candidates who seemed most likely to promote effective climate action. Collectively we’ve made quite a difference. Public opinion polls now show almost three-quarters of U.S. adults want more government action on climate. U.S. emissions are slowly coming down, not fast enough, but coming down.

Emissions from the wealthiest nations have been the primary cause of the climate crisis. Ending these emissions is essential to solving the climate crisis. Other wealthy nations are also reducing their emissions, although also too slowly.

Now I want to invite you to take an even more global perspective. We know that climate change does not respect national borders. Greenhouse gas emissions anywhere, cause climate change everywhere. This means that if we care about the livability of the planet for humans, we need to care about what’s happening with emissions everywhere.

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

A Big Win!

russvj 2 Comments

On January 26, President Biden announced a halt to all new permits for LNG (Liquefied methane “Natural” Gas) export terminals. This is a very big deal because the U.S. fossil fuel industry (already the largest exporter of LNG in the world) has been proposing the biggest fossil fuel expansion in the world–17 new export terminals. These terminals would result in much more methane gas being burned in other countries, further destroying the global climate.

Stopping these terminals is an important part of solving the climate crisis. This is a victory for the frontline residents of the Gulf Coast who have been fighting them for years, for frontline people everywhere being threatened by climate change, and for all of us.

This is also a big deal because of how the decision came about. Biden’s decision was a direct result of ….

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Why Hasn’t Climate Action Made More Difference?

russvj 2 Comments ,

There’s a lot of good news about the growth of electricity generation by solar panels and wind turbines around the world, the increase in electrifying heating and cooling of buildings, and the increased adoption of electric vehicles. Millions of people are working hard to solve the climate crisis and enable humanity to transition to a carbon-free energy systems and sustainable economies.

Yet global warming continues to increase and the predictions about the climate disasters we can expect in the future are dire. Why are the projections still so bleak when we’ve made and are making so much progress?

There is one clear answer: the fossil fuel industry. The fossil fuel industry has ….

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

COP28 and the Climate Bomb on Biden’s Desk

russvj 2 Comments ,

It’s been very interesting to read various commentators’ reactions to COP28, the UN climate conference of all the nations that met in Dubai for two weeks in December. Some are describing it as a dismal failure, while others see it as a positive turning point in human history. Paradoxically, I think both views are correct.

COP28 utterly failed to do what humanity needs in order to deal with the climate emergency. What we needed was ambitious, enforceable commitments to begin immediately to phase out fossil fuel use and extraction in every nation, and for the nations that got wealthy burning fossil fuels to provide financial assistance to the developing nations so they can deal with climate change.

Of course, we got none of this from the COP. It’s not surprising that the COP didn’t take these actions. Over 2,400 ….

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Climate Activists and Small Nations Making a Difference in Their Nations and at COP28

russvj 0 Comments , ,

I’ve been excited to learn recently about three different powerful climate activist campaigns, two of which have led to actions at COP28. As I write this it’s too early to know what the COP itself will produce, but so far much of the news seems to indicate that we have not yet built a sufficiently powerful climate movement, either in the U.S. or globally, to derail the power of the fossil fuel industry and its accomplices.

Here’s some good news. A month ago I wrote to you about a vital campaign to stop the climate-destroying expansion of LNG export terminals along the Gulf Coast in the U.S. This campaign is growing. In late November activists delivered more than 200,000 petition signatures to the Department of Energy calling for the Biden Administration to halt any permit approvals for new LNG terminals. At the behest of Third Act, elders are writing thousands of hand-written letters. Young influencers are using TikTok and Instagram to spread the word.

The Biden Administration has made no announcements about any change in policy, but they’ve indicated privately that they are seriously studying their response to this uproar. If you haven’t signed the petition yet, please join in on what has become an international protest and sign the petition. It’s at www.bit.ly/NoNewLNG. Organizers are now seeking a million signatures. (Note: The count you will see on the signing website includes only a fraction of the signatures so far.)

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Can we handle the harsh climate truth?

russvj 4 Comments , , ,

When I was in Manhattan for New York Climate Week in late September I met climate author and activist Margaret Klein Salamon for the first time. Margaret played a key role some years ago in getting activists, and then much of the press and many political leaders to use the term “climate emergency.” In 2016 she wrote an influential paper titled “Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: A New Strategy for the Climate Movement.” That paper had a big impact on my own thinking and I’ve long admired her work, so I felt especially honored to get to meet her and talk with her.

She gave me a copy of her new book “Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth.” Reading it has been quite an experience for me. On the one hand, I find it deeply reassuring that someone else understands how serious the climate situation is and knows that we are going to have to feel a lot of feelings in order to engage fully with it. At the same time, I’m asking myself, “Am I living my life as though we are in an emergency? Or am I still trying to have a business-as-usual lifestyle that’s inappropriate to our times?”

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Stop New Methane Gas Exports Now – CP2 and 20 others

russvj 2 Comments ,

Eight years ago in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the nations of the world set a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. They agreed that every nation, and especially the wealthiest ones, would contribute to reducing climate damaging emissions.

Since then many people, businesses, climate organizations, and governments around the world have worked to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, reduce the use of fossil fuels, preserve forests, and generally reduce our collective carbon footprint. In the United States we’ve had some modest success. Since 2005 our polluting emissions have fallen 20%. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is accelerating our progress with significant incentives for transitioning to renewable energy.

However, while we’ve been making progress on domestic emissions, something horrible has been happening in the U.S. that is having a huge global impact–worsening the climate crisis with deadly effects on people all over the world. Since 2015 the U.S. has gone from exporting no oil and virtually no LNG (liquefied “natural” methane gas) to becoming the largest driller and exporter of gas and oil in the world! The increased emissions from the gas and oil we export are so great that they exceed all the reductions we’ve achieved in our domestic greenhouse gas emissions since 2005.

One effect has been to ….

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

March to End Fossil Fuels

russvj 0 Comments ,

This past Sunday I participated in the “March to End Fossil Fuels” in New York City. What an exhilarating experience! Thousands of people jammed the streets of New York to demand an end to fossil fuels. People of different races and ages came together to show how much they care about what climate change is doing to our world and its inhabitants. There was chanting, singing, drumming and dancing. Voices were united in “What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!”

It’s estimated that over 75,000 people marched in New York. New York’s grassroots organizations and people from frontline communities headed up the march. Black, Indigenous, Latinex, Asian and Pacific Islander groups led the procession, followed by youth, elders, workers, people of faith, and people of all backgrounds. According to Oil Change International, this was only one of more than 700 end-fossil-fuel actions in 65 countries, with more than 600,000 people participating just in the past week.

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

I Don’t Like Bad News

russvj 3 Comments , ,

I don’t like bad news. I don’t like reading that July 3, 4, and 6 each set a new record for the hottest average global temperature on Earth, for as long as records have been kept and, according to scientists’ best estimates, the hottest day in the last 125,000 years.

I don’t like reading that parts of China are suffering under a prolonged heat wave with temperatures up to 110° F; that 1.8 million Muslims on the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia encountered 118°F temperatures; or that scientists are alarmed at the “totally unprecedented” heat wave in the waters of the North Atlantic–melting sea ice and disrupting important currents.

I don’t like reading that wealthy nations and corporations blocked significant progress at the June UN climate session in Bonn, Germany that was designed to prepare proposals for the next big UN climate conference, COP 28, this coming December. “The Bonn Climate Conference laid bare the glaring hypocrisy of wealthy nations, showcasing a remarkable indifference to the struggles of developing countries,” said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network, which includes more than 1,500 civil society groups.

So, what do we do with bad climate news? I think it is important that we all develop workable approaches to this situation. We are certainly going to encounter plenty more bad news about the climate crisis in the months and years ahead. We don’t want ….

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

Why Can’t We Move Faster on Climate?

russvj 6 Comments

What is it that has stopped the United States from dealing successfully with the climate crisis? We’ve known for at least 3 decades that we needed to act, but instead we’ve allowed the problem to get much worse. Is it the climate deniers? Is it people not taking lowering their “personal carbon footprints” seriously enough? Is it politicians who just don’t get it?

No! It is none of the above. The big barrier has been the fossil fuel companies–and the way they exert political power and manipulate public opinion. Climate denial was created by a deceitful disinformation campaign funded by ExxonMobil and others. The whole idea of a “personal carbon footprint” was a ploy invented by the PR department of BP Oil to distract the public from the huge responsibility borne by the fossil fuel industry. The politicians have been paid not to “get it.” Senator Joe Manchin, who recently sank the Build Back Better bill, has his own financial stake in the coal industry, and he also has taken in more the $400,000 in donations from oil and gas companies just in the last few months. He’s also the top lifetime recipient of oil, gas, and coal money among all those in Congress.

These companies have pursued their own profit and greed with abandon, while knowing that their very business itself was creating a climate crisis that threatens the existence of civilization as we know it. They have expanded their extraction and marketing dramatically, while climate scientists have been making it clear that fossil fuels must be eliminated entirely. They have used money, lies, and high-paid public relations experts to undermine every effort to address the climate crisis.

A new report, just out, ….

Read more
Blog FEATURED 

“Dangerous Radicals”

russvj 0 Comments , , ,

If earlier reports from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were wake-up calls to take climate action, the one released in early April is a blaring emergency horn that the world dare not ignore. In a statement accompanying the report, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the failure of governments and corporations to keep pledges and take effective climate action has “put us firmly on track toward an unlivable world.”

The report indicates that in order to keep global warming within the 1.5°C target, greenhouse gas emissions can continue to rise for only 3 more years. They must fall 43% by 2030. The scientists report that this is still possible, but that unless transformative climate action is taken in the next 8 years, the 1.5°C target will be out of reach forever. Unless countries step up their reductions in emissions, we are on course for a global temperature rise of 2.4°C to 3.5°C. This would bring unimaginable devastation to populations everywhere.

I have not plowed through the entire 3,675 pages of this latest report, but in the summaries and articles about it there are items of good news. The first is ….

Read more
Adams Brook, Shutesbury, MA
Blog FEATURED 

Examples of Climate Action and an Invitation to Join In

russvj 3 Comments ,

In my previous post I offered some “tips on stepping up our climate action” and encouraged us all to take action more frequently despite any feelings of discouragement or despair. I proposed that we each 1) decide to act, 2)take some action, 3) be pleased that we have acted, 4) repeat the first 3 steps again, over and over.

While I mentioned some possible actions in that post, it seems that some more specific, personal examples might be useful.

I’m not yet as bold and effective in my climate action as I aspire to be, but I do persist and do a number of things that are helping me get connected to other people and, I believe, make a difference. In the hope that these examples will lead you to think further about what you want to do, here are a few of the things I’ve been engaged in recently.

I learned, through an email from 350.org, that a federal judge voided a huge sale of drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico that the federal government had recently completed. This is such good news, because …

Read more