I recently read an interesting post by climate scientist Hannah Ritchie titled Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die From Climate Change. She doesn’t use the term, but in it Ritchie scolds the “doomers” out there who she feels are deceiving the youth and actually hurting their own cause. Overall, I think I agree with her message. She cites a few extreme examples of people really exaggerating the likely outcomes, at least from a scientific view. She makes a number of excellent points about the dangers of exaggeration, and about the problem of doomsaying. She acknowledges that that things aren’t happening fast enough, and she empathizes with people who feel hopeless.

Her viewpoint is one of a scientist, and I certainly won’t question her understanding of climate science. That being said, as with most scientists, she really swings and misses on the social and political implications of the climate crisis. Granted, that isn’t the primary focus of the piece so it would be unfair to read too much into it. Perhaps she’s an astute political observer and it just doesn’t come across. My point is not to criticize what she wrote, just the opposite. The article is thoughtful, information, and definitely worth a read. It got me thinking about my own outlook and the tone that I set on this page.

As someone whose knowledge and interest are more firmly in the political rather than scientific realm, I know I lean closer to the “doomer” point of view. I often feel a bit despondent at our chances of success. One of my main concerns is the potential for climate change to destabilize political regimes across the world. Historically, in times of crisis, people have frequently turned to authoritarian regimes, and we’re already seeing the emergence of authoritarian tendencies among right-wing political parties, including here in the United States. Combine climate disasters with the specific brand of end times Christianity that is extremely popular in this country, and we may be in serious trouble.

Not only would political instability lead to abuse and possibly warfare, it would also hamper our ability to solve climate change. Large, powerful, and wealthy fossil fuel companies would be more than happy to prop up strongmen as long as the profits keep flowing. This isn’t conjecture, it’s history, and it’s still going on.

Ritchie’s main point is spot on. We don’t need to exaggerate the dangers of climate change. They are substantial, and we are definitely not moving fast enough. Time is running out to hit the 1.5^o C target. In fact, as Ritchie says, I think the probability of hitting that target is essentially zero. In all likelihood we’ve already missed that window. We’re currently on pace to exhaust that carbon budget in 11 years.

That means we should be focusing on 2^o C. We need to be realistic about what will happen as the planet warms. This means many island nations may disappear. It means millions of refugees. It means heat waves, hurricanes, droughts and floods. It means crop shortages, diseases, and instability.

However, it does not mean game over. Civilization isn’t simply going to collapse when we get to 1.51^o C. That being said, let’s not pretend civilization is guaranteed to last either. By all metrics, we endanger of societal collapse sometime this century. The climate crisis is a contributing factor, but it’s hardly the only one.

Predictions of civilizational collapse have been wrong before. But they were wrong because people did something about it. No one is going to save us from ourselves. The road ahead is long and treacherous, but there is still a road ahead. We aren’t doomed (yet), but we also aren’t out of the woods.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that the next 3 months may be the most important months of our lives. They may determine once and for all if we will contain the climate crisis or if we let it roar onward. 3 months from today, we’ll know if the COP26 climate conference was a success. But in order for that to happen, we must take care of business here at home.

Right now is crunch time for climate action in the United States. Democrats control the House, Senate, and White House for the first time since 2011. Based on historical patterns, the Republicans are likely to capture one or both houses of Congress next year, and most of 2022 will be focused on re-election campaigns rather than legislation. At this moment, there is a concerted push by President Biden to pass both his Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan, and his partisan reconciliation bill. Republicans continue to show zero interest in combatting the climate crisis, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon. So our best hope for action lies in these two parallel pieces of legislation.

The BIP, while not directly related to climate, does have a number of climate-friendly features, including the largest federal investment in Amtrak and mass transit in history, billions for the electrical grid and electric vehicle charging, along with money to modernize infrastructure in the face of extreme weather.

The reconciliation package is where the meat of President Biden’s climate agenda is, and it would represent by far the largest federal investment in climate action in US history. It sets a goal that the power sector will be 80% “clean” (meaning solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear at the least) electricity and the economy see a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. Some of the highlights include:

• Direct payments to utilities that are moving away from fossil fuels, and penalties for those moving too slowly.
• A Clean Energy Technology Accelerator designed to advance needed low-carbon technologies.
• Extension of clean energy tax credits
• Decarbonize the federal building portfolio and vehicle fleet
• Money for using agriculture and forestry to sequester carbon

The policy of direct payments to utilities is the centerpiece. Under the reconciliation rules, Congress cannot pass a “clean electricity standard” which would mandate that a certain percentage of our power come from clean electricity. The next best thing is this series of payments and penalties to utilities, which is what the Biden admin is proposing.

Simply put, the BIP and the reconciliation bill dwarf any previous federal action on climate, and if the president can get them passed this year, and if he wins reelection in 2024, he would have 7 years in which to implement the spending. Scientists say we need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030, so President Biden has a chance to put us on course for that.

If he’s successful, it will set a number of industries on near-irreversible paths towards a low carbon future. If car companies spend the next 7 years investing and marketing EVs, it’s unlikely they will switch back to internal combustion engines. If every coal plant in America goes out of business, then it’s unlikely anyone will build new coal plans (at least here). I write a lot about “tipping points”, usually as a warning, but there are also positive tipping points. Decarbonizing the entire economy is slow and plodding, a bit like turning a supertanker, but once we start making the turn, our momentum will make it hard to stop.

Of course, there is always the possibility that the reconciliation bill will lose its climate provisions. This would be a catastrophe. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

The other part of the equation is the COP26 in Glasgow, (“COP” stands for “Conference of Partners”, it isn’t a very good name). You may remember the “Paris Climate Agreement” from 2015. That was a product of COP21 in Paris. COP26 is the first such conference since President Trump, a noted climate denier, left office. The US essentially abandoned climate policy during the Trump years, and the rest of the world moved on.

But things aren’t moving fast enough. America’s absence has been a problem and much of the world no longer takes us seriously as a global leader. If the Biden Administration wishes to be taken seriously at COP26, then he will need to pass major climate legislation before then. A failure to pass such legislation, particularly during a year where the climate crisis has beaten us over the head since February, would be a devastating blow to US credibility.

Robust climate legislation will increase our chances of a strong COP26 summit, but an embarrassing US failure to legislate would likely doom the whole endeavor to irrelevance.

And this opportunity may not come again. If the GOP wins the midterms next year, they may hold on to one or both houses of Congress for several cycles (after winning the House in 2010, they held on to at least one house of Congress for 10 years until the 2020 election). I’ve learned through much bitterness to never overestimate the average voter. I have very little hope voters will punish the GOP for its idiotic anti-climate shenanigans. 10 more years of business as usual would quite literally exhaust our carbon budget. Of course, it’s never too late to do something but the goal here is to minimize the damage.

If President Biden can get these packages passed without too much compromise on climate, then I will rest easy for the time being, knowing we’re finally on the right path. If he fails, I’ll buy myself an expensive bottle of whiskey and toast to what could have been.

I have been pleasantly surprised by President Biden’s commitment to climate action, and I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt for now. Even if he is successful, there will still be an enormous amount of work to do, but at least we’ll have a fighting chance.

Many times, when we confront environmental challenges, they are often presented as shortcomings of our personal choices. We are told to use less, to recycle, to change our personal habits, in order to “save the planet”.

This idea is nonsense.

Environmental challenges, like so many others, are systemic challenges and therefore require systemic fixes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of changing our individual behaviors for the better of the environment (and society). I encourage everyone to examine their own habits on a regular basis and find ways to improve. This is hardly limited to environmental habits.

But, if we rely on individuals to make changes, without changing the systems, we will fail. We know this for certain because we’ve tried it many times before.

I won’t go into a long explanation of systemic thinking and systemic issues (if you’re curious, I highly recommend “Thinking in Systems” by Donella Meadows), but it’s important to understand the basics.

Everything we do is part of a system. The way we build our houses, the way food is grown, the way Oscar nominees are decided, the way we punish criminals, the way we elect politicians, all of it is part of a system. The system itself creates the outcomes, good or bad.

Racism is perpetuated by a system. (actually, quite a few systems). Pollution is also perpetuated by systems.(The intersection of racism and pollution is something called environmental racism. The opposite of environmental racism is environmental justice).

The way we start to change systems is by changing policy. Of course, we can’t just legislate and expect immediate results. But bad policy that perpetuates bad systems will make things worse. Good policy that works to improve the system will make things better. I realize this is pretty vague, but bear with me.

Carbon emissions are created by a group of systems. The energy system, the agricultural system, the real estate system, the industrial and transportation systems, etc. If we really want to lower carbon emissions, we must identify the ways in which systems create emissions and then adjust the systems themselves.

I’ll use one concrete example: the airline industry. Airlines and their associated systems are not (usually) required to account for their carbon emissions. Flying is one of the most GHG intensive activities we do and yet airlines and airline passengers are allowed to send their carbon emissions into the atmosphere free of charge. In order to solve this problem, we have to either:

1. Require that airlines offset all their carbon emissions (this is called command and control) or

2. Make emitting carbon so expensive that airlines can’t compete on the open market (this is a carbon price or carbon tax) or

3. Come up with some other policy that forces, either through coercion or some other means, airlines to offset their emissions.

But can’t individual passengers either choose not to fly or choose to offset their own personal emissions? Of course. And for those to believe that individual freedom trumps all other things, this sounds like a good idea. But anyone with even a mild familiarity with human behavior would realize that not everyone is going to do this. We know because passengers can already do this and very few choose to.

Individual choice makes people feel good, but it doesn’t solve the problem. System change, brought about by policy and advocacy, is the only reliable way to fix system problems. Understanding that is paramount if we really want to do anything serious about climate or any of the other systemic problems we face.