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      rebecca solnit

      Volunteers and Vermont Army National Guardsmen unload water bottles.

      Instead of Moving to Escape Climate Chaos, Build Social Trust Where You Are

      As global heating shrinks the size of the board on which we play the game of life, we’re going to need to return to the basic human experience of relying on the people around us.

      Bill Mckibben
      Aug 05, 2023

      I’ve given a lot of talks about climate change over the years—that’s part of what organizers do. And I can predict with great confidence the questions that people will raise their hands to ask. “Isn’t the real problem overpopulation?” (Not really; most population growth is coming in places that use incredibly small amounts of energy.) Or “what about nuclear?” (keep the plants we’ve got open if we safely can; new ones are incredibly slow and expensive to build, though someday a generation of yet newer ones could conceivably change that; in the meantime rely on the nuclear reactor hanging a safe 93 million miles up in the sky).

      I can also predict the questions people will ask later, privately, as the crowd drifts out of the auditorium. One—“Is it OK for me to have a kid?”—is almost unbearably painful; no one should have to ask it. The other—“Where should I move?”—is a (little) less traumatizing. And I think it’s on a lot of minds, especially right now, as it becomes clear that many parts of our Earth won’t be habitable going forward. As I tried to explain in a recent book, global heating is systematically shrinking the size of the board on which humans can play the game of life.

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      Opinion
      climate emergency
      Seniors to Bolster Youth-Led Climate Strikes With Day of Action Against Dirty Banks

      Seniors to Bolster Youth-Led Climate Strikes With Day of Action Against Dirty Banks

      "We have to show young people we have their back," said veteran climate advocate Bill McKibben.

      Julia Conley
      Mar 20, 2023

      Determined not to leave all the responsibility for climate action with young campaigners like Greta Thunberg and the Sunrise Movement, older Americans are organizing a nationwide Day of Action planned for Tuesday, with the aim of wielding the relative political and economic power of people aged 60 and up to pressure big banks to stop funding fossil fuel projects.

      Following actor and activist Jane Fonda's "Fire Drill Friday" protests that began in Washington, D.C. in 2019, longtime climate advocate Bill McKibben founded Third Act last year to mobilize older Americans who wanted to show solidarity with the Generation Z activists leading worldwide climate protests in recent years.

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      News
      third act
      Flames burn trees during a forest fire near Belin-Beliet in Gironde, southwestern France, on August 10, 2022.

      2023 Can Be the Year We Save the Planet

      There is no longer time for thinking small. The only option is thinking big.

      John Nichols
      Jan 02, 2023

      During the period from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve, Wisconsinites saw powerful evidence of the instability of our devolving climate. A pre-Christmas snowstorm, fierce winds, record cold, temperatures in the 50s, rain, and melted-away snow—it was a cacophony that could only be attributed to climate change.

      And, in many ways, Wisconsin's experience was better than that of other parts of the country, which in 2022 saw devastating hurricanes, fires, record heat, and a closing wave of apocalyptic snowstorms that left dozens dead.

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      Opinion
      climate
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