Pushing Back, Short-Term and Long

How to Make Progress Part II

The black half of this drawing is the logo for Sun Day, with huge thanks to Brian Collins, Eron Lutterman, and Beth Johnson. The orange half is illustrative of what we need from you right now—your drawing of the sun.

First things first—this is the most desperate moment I can remember in my life as an American, and neither I, nor anyone else, has any plan that’s going to fix it in short order.

Real and painful things are happening by the minute—just in our world of climate advocacy, as Zahra Hirji and Canielle Bochove made clear with excellent reporting this morning, illegal funding cutoffs have caused “confusion and panic among groups and researchers that work on clean energy, climate change and environmental justice.” If you’re a glutton for punishment, the Times has a litany of similar stories from IRA-funded projects across the nation. And that’s nothing compared to the trauma that immigrants, and transgender Americans, and federal workers, and overseas AIDS patients, and lots of others are feeling. Even for those who are not for the moment directly affected, the sight of Elon Musk and his minions enthusiastically trashing systems that took decades of careful bipartisan work to build is nauseating. W

That said, there are signs these last days that some kind of opposition is finally starting to find its feet—that the shock and awe are producing a reaction of gathering resolve. As groups like Third Act and Indivisible have flooded switchboards with calls and rallied outside the Treasury, some Congressional leaders have begun to find their voice. Predictably, it was the ever-eloquent Jamie Raskin who, outside the shuttered offices of USAID yesterday, summed it up with the first great line of this resistance: “There’s not a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk.”

The lawsuits are beginning to be filed—which is good, but also scary, since there’s no guarantee that if the courts stand up for the constitution, Trump will obey their rulings. (And if he doesn’t then God knows). Foreign leaders are finding a voice, too—it appears that the Canadians and Mexicans managed to call his bluff on tariffs, at least for now.

All of us need to keep up this pressure. I’ve been talking to Senators from across the country, but I’ve also been calling my state congressional offices daily—we don’t need, I keep telling them, another press release. “We need you, out in front like Raskin or AOC have been, speaking boldly and without fear.” There are other beautiful ideas emerging. Beginning tomorrow, a group called Choose Democracy is asking all of us to take one minute each Wednesday to pause for silent reflection on the damage being done—it’s happening at 12:53 p.m., which is the moment that thugs breached the Capitol on January 6, and also apparently the precise time that the billionaires took their seats for Trump’s inauguration. This won’t by itself do a thing—but as Ivan Marovic, the Serbian nonviolence guru, told a bunch of us the other night, in an authoritarian regime, simply paying witness is crucial. People will assemble at state capitols tomorrow; they rallied outside the Treasury this afternoon.

As is often the case, I think the political commentator Josh Marshall has sage advice. Our job is not to stop what Trump is doing, because we can’t. For the moment, he has the power he needs, though Congressional Democrats can find some small fingerholds—the need to extend the country’s debt ceiling, for instance—and use them to exact concessions. Our basic job is to make what he’s doing is deeply unpopular, because that will stiffen the backbone of the courts and any remaining moderate Republicans, and set us up for possible gains if and when we next have elections. So: witness, communicate, ridicule, amplify strong voices.

It’s defense, and in a moment like this defense is crucial.

But it’s also not enough. So I want to talk about the slightly longer term as well—about the chances for going on offense, especially on climate where the passage of time is literally deadly. We simply don’t have four years to lay on the ropes absorbing blows, because physics could care less about the political cycle: I mean, it was 20 degrees Celsius above normal at the North Pole today, which means ice was melting there in midwinter. So, we have to look for the place where we have an advantage, and then work like hell to exploit it. We have to go on offense too

Our advantage, for the moment anyway, doesn’t lie in land of politics; we lost that when we lost the election. Instead it lies in engineering and economics and culture. Yes, everything is going wrong except for one big thing, which is that the price of clean energy keeps falling and falling, and hence it gets easier and easier to put up more and more of it.

So our job is to make sure that everyone knows that. At the moment, as I’ve said a couple of times, even environmentalists still think of sun and wind as ‘alternative energy,’ the Whole Foods of power—nice but pricy. But that’s wrong. This is the Costco of energy. And around the world it’s being installed faster than anything else—a lot faster. We just learned that renewables reached 60% of Germany’s power generation mix last year—Germany, where no one has ever taken a beach vacation. Pakistanis have put up the equivalent of half their national electric grid in solar panels in the last year.

If we can get that message across, the fossil fuel industry’s control of our political machine will matter somewhat less—the pressure for change will build. And as we confront the craven billionaires now doing Trump’s bidding, we can also get across to everyone the idea that now we have access to energy that can’t be hoarded, can’t be kept in ‘reserves.’ The sun rises every day; the breeze washes across the whole globe. This is liberatory power.

So in about six weeks we’re going to formally announce plans for a big global day of action—we’re calling it Sun Day. It will happen on the weekend of the autumnal equinox, September 20 and 21. It will be a celebration of the fact that we can now run this world without fossil fuels: imagine EV and e-bike parades, green lights in the window of every solar-powered home, big concerts and rallies, joyful ceremonies as new solar farms and wind turbines go on line. It’s going to happen around the world. It’s going to demand justice—above all, that we figure out how to finance this revolution around the world, so the people who need it most can take full part. And it’s going to be beautiful.

This may not look, at first glance, like ‘resistance’ or ‘opposition.’ But in fact this is precisely what the fossil fuel industry fears most: the truth that their product isn’t needed. That it’s dirty, that it’s expensive, and that there’s a better way—Big Oil’s executives know that at the cellular level, which is precisely why they spent so much money electing Trump. Solar panels are to the fossil fuel industry what water was to the Wicked Witch.

If we’re very lucky, we’ll catch some of the magic that the first Earth Day caught back in 1970. Because we need change at that speed—remember, within 18 months a corrupt Republican president was forced to sign the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. But at the very least it will give a huge boost to local and state efforts here and around the world. An example: Massachusetts is considering a law that would require approvals for solar panels on roofs within five days. That would make a huge difference, and if 50,000 people turn out across Boston it will pass the legislature the next week.

For any of this to happen, the day needs to be beautiful, which is why I’m giving you this little heads-up: so I can make a very short-term ask of you. If you look at the image at the top of this page, the black half on the left is the Sun Day logo (such deep thanks to Brian Collins, Eron Lutterman, Beth Johnson). It’s half a sun, and it symbolizes the fact that we’re half the way there: we have the technology, now we need the political will. If you go to sunday.earth, you can draw your own sun; please do, because we want to have thousands of them to play with before we officially launch in March.

We’re not ready yet for you to register an event in your town—but start thinking. (When I say ‘we’—there’s a broad coalition of groups emerging to get this day done; all together, they will figure out the various messages needed most in different places and with different cohorts). We need great ideas from you for all the different ways to get this message across, and all the people to involve. We’re aiming to officially announce the plans to the world on the spring equinox, as the sun comes galloping toward us in the northern hemisphere.

As all us fans of sports cliches know, the best defense is a good offense. Time to start setting the fossil fuel industry back on its heels a bit! Oh, and prepare yourselves to hear a lot about this project in this newsletter; I hope this community can play a cheerful and charming role!

In other energy and climate news

+Trump is using the threat of tariffs to coerce Asian nations into taking LNG exports. This is a particular threat to the planet’s health, because his momentary extortion may well lock in those countries to decades of expensive and dangerous fossil fuel, even as the price of renewables plunge. It’s also just disgusting

Buyers from South Korea to Vietnam are considering procuring more American gas to avoid crippling trade levies.

“His threat to link EU tariffs to LNG purchases marks a stark departure from market-based principles,” said Claudio Steuer, a veteran energy consultant. The potential levies shift the US position on LNG from competitive pricing to “politically-driven trade that could undermine long-term market confidence,” he said.

The Japanese are even pledging billions for an Alaskan LNG pipeline in order to

court U.S. President Donald Trump and forestall potential trade friction, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

Officials in Tokyo expect Trump may raise the project, which he has said is key for U.S. prosperity and security, when he meets Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for the first time in Washington as soon as next week, the sources said.

That makes it all the more important to support folks like these Gulf Coast activists who have traveled to Asia to make the case against LNG exports

As I, Manning Rollerson, stepped off a plane in Tokyo this week, I carry with me the stories of five generations of family who have watched our Texas Gulf South community transform into what can only be described as a "sacrifice zone." I am a Black community rights activist and founder of Freeport Haven Project for Environmental Justice. I have watched my historically Black community bear the brunt of industrial pollution for far too long. With 27 grandchildren, this fight is deeply personal. When our children are born with cancer and breathing issues, there should be accountability. That's why I'm here in Japan—to say enough is enough.

And in the long run, as the veteran reporter Keith Schneider points out, it’s all a gift to China

The distinguishing feature of the method Trump pursues, admired by tech and fossil energy executives, is the madness it assures for millions of Americans. It’s like Trump has handcuffed the country to the steel leg of a bed frame. It’ll be a feat to drag it to safety.

Speaking of which, China this morning imposed its own 15 percent tariffs on LNG

+The ever-heroic Sammy Roth has the inside details on Trump’s pronouncement that he had freed water from behind a California dam to fight the LA fires. Perhaps you’ll be amazed to learn that

When President Trump said last week that the military had “just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond,” he was lying. As The Times’ Clara Harter and Ian James reported, there was no military invasion. The federal government simply restarted some Northern California pumps that had been down for maintenance for three days.

A few days after Trump’s post, things got even wilder.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dramatically increased the amount of water flowing from two dams in California’s San Joaquin Valley, in response to an executive order from Trump. The water would normally help farmers irrigate their fields, but it’s not irrigation season. Nobody asked for the water; in fact, panicked local water agencies had to persuade the Army Corps to release less to limit flood risks.

None of those facts stopped the Trump administration from spreading propaganda.

An Army Corps official said the releases were intended “to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires” — even though the Los Angeles County fires are finally contained, and insufficient water for firefighting was never a real problem anyway. Trump, meanwhile, falsely insisted that if he could have released more water in California during his first term, “There would have been no fire!”

I’d laugh if I weren’t so terrified.

+A useful tool from the folks as Bloomberg lets you see the ratio of bank loans for dirty energy and clean energy. Bottom line: progress, but too slow

The energy industry is shifting more of its investment into cleaner sources of supply. Bank financing for low-carbon energy supply technologies reached 89% of that for fossil fuels in 2023 – meaning that for every dollar that went to oil, natural gas and coal, 89 cents went into things like wind, solar and grids. This is our third annual assessment of those flows, taking in both the investments made by energy companies and bank-facilitated finance. Despite the improvement, the ratio isn’t evolving at the pace needed to hit the 4:1 level required this decade under commonly referenced scenarios to limit climate change to 1.5C.

Meanwhile, Environmental Advocates, the topflight New York State NGO, has a plan for holding banks responsible for their carbon emissions, even as many of them back out of their global promises. As Mark Gongloff explains, New Yorkers can have an outsized effect here

New York is the world’s financial capital, home to its biggest banks and to Wall Street, where robots trade things and make everybody rich (or poor). The state’s financial regulations thus have global impact. It can use that power to help avoid the worst of climate change by pushing banks in its jurisdiction to do the right thing, counteracting Trump and his allies pushing in the other direction.

+Residents of pricy Key Biscayne are miffed that their taxes may rise to pay for raising their roads in the face of rising seas. (Lot of rising in that sentence).

“I just feel like you guys are presenting a Cadillac and all we really need is a Ford,” resident Betty Conroy told the council.

Betty should probably feel lucky. Kendra Pierre Louis offers an excellent account of how some of the most remarkable roads in the country are being washed away entirely by a heating climate.

“When they engineered these roads, they made big assumptions that we weren’t going to have big changes in precipitation,” says Paul Chinowsky, professor emeritus of civil engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Planners also didn’t anticipate severe erosion that’s become more common on a warmer planet. “We literally built the roads on the edge of land,” he says.

The best example is almost certainly California’s achingly beautiful Highway 1 along Big Sur. Meanwhile, in California yesterday, State Farm—the state’s biggest home insurer—applied for an emergency 22 percent rate hike, using somewhat apocalyptic language

“The importance of our ask for your immediate help to protect all Californians cannot be overstated,” State Farm said in the letter. Authorizing higher rates would send a crucial message to to “solvency regulators, rating agencies” and company leadership that the insurer “has a chance to begin rebuilding capital to sustain itself.”

The even bigger picture comes from Abraham Lustgarten in the Times, explaining that insurance rates are rising so fast around the country that it may already be spurring serious internal ‘climate migration.’

First Street, in fact, correlates the rise in insurance rates and dropping property values with widespread climate migration, predicting that more than 55 million Americans will migrate in response to climate risks inside this country within the next three decades, and that more than five million Americans will migrate this year. First Street’s analysts posit that climate risk is becoming just as important as schools and waterfront views when people purchase a home, and that while property values are likely to drop in most places, they will rise — by more than 10 percent by midcentury — in the safer regions.

The Wall Street Journal account of the same study puts it like this:

Climate change will cause a $1.47 trillion decline in U.S. home values by 2055

+Elegant essay from David Beckman, who runs the Pisces Foundation, and who argues (see Sun Day above) that we need to be focused less on policy and more on building power

I made this point in the The New York Times, in response to an article listing tactical changes the environmental movement could make. For sure, many of these approaches could advance our efforts. But they are not the same thing as confronting and directly addressing an imbalanced policy-power equation.

I hear more willingness today to consider fundamental shifts and to connect to generate good ideas together. This is welcome—not just because it can enhance our effectiveness. Our connections are also a deep form of mutual support, a salve in tough moment, and a great place to begin the work of the second half of this pivotal decade.

+Warmer winters mean more rats in Boston!

And not just Boston—11 of 16 cities studied showed increases in rat populations, with “cities experiencing greater temperature increases over time seeing larger increases in rats” because “warming temperatures and more people living in cities may be expanding the seasonal activity periods and food availability for urban rats.”

+Greenland is cracking up faster than before, as giant crevasses appear in the world’s second-largest ice sheet

“The biggest thing I was surprised about was how fast this was happening. One previous study showed changes over the scale of decades … and now we’re showing this happening on scales of five years,” said Dr Tom Chudley, an assistant geography professor at Durham University and lead author of the study.

Meanwhile, temperatures at the North Pole are twenty degrees Celsius above normal, meaning that ice is melting there in midwinter

+Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Record rainfall in northern Australia is producing unprecedented flooding. Oh, and

Queensland’s Department of Environment, Science and Innovation has warned residents to be wary of crocodiles that could be lurking in the floodwaters, according to Nine News.

“During flooding crocodiles can turn up in places they haven’t been seen before as they move about in search of calmer waters,” the department said in a statement. “Expect crocodiles in all north and far north Queensland waterways even if there is no warning sign.”

+Veteran environmental journalist Justin Nobel reflects on the fact that hedge fund KK&R, which has extensive oil investments, recently purchased Simon and Schuster, his publisher. After pulling his book, he embarks on a road trip to see some of the company’s Texas footprint, which he documents in a powerful piece for Harpers. He finds, among other things,

fourteen million barrels of waste from across the Eagle Ford shale, piled in a landfill beside U.S. Highway 83, with modest homes on either side that made up the communities of Catarina and Asherton. The landfill was owned by the Texas oil-field waste-disposal company R360 Environmental Solutions, and reports I later obtained suggested that thousands of barrels were dumped there every day. They had been generated by familiar firms, including Shell and Hess, and companies with lesser-known names, like Nature’s Way Energy Services, Pursuit Oil and Gas—and Javelin Oil and Gas, another Crescent subsidiary. Just across the street was a second landfill, belonging to a Texas company called Weeks Environmental, whose own black mountain—nearly ten million additional barrels of waste—rose into the Texas gloaming.

Inside mountains like these are crushed up bits of black-shale formations, which form from the organic muck accumulated at the bottom of seas, heated and compressed over time. They compose most of the oil- and gas-bearing formations presently being fracked to pieces across America. “These landfills,” Julie Weatherington-Rice, an Ohio earth scientist who was one of my earliest sources, told me, “will be radioactive until the sun burns out.”

+Much better news from the writing world! The estimable Rebecca Solnit has a brand new newsletter, Meditations in an Emergency. If you had to pick a couple of writers to get you through the next few years, she’d be on the list for sure

It's worth noting that the word emergency is built out of emerge, as in to exit or rise out of something, the opposite of merge, when things come together. An emergency is when things come apart--it can be breakage but also opening. and it's related to the words emergence and emergent.

On we go!