SNAKE!

Or, why we may actually be doomed...

The effects of climate change are everywhere now to see - whether you are watching the news or experiencing a flood, hurricane, or wildfire in person. This is a plain opening statement. Unless you are among the unserious rabble of science deniers, paid “scientists” working for the fossil fuel industry, or a hidebound GOP back bencher being handsomely brib… I mean, lobbied… by Big Oil, you can see that the climate is changing, and that it ain’t pretty.

So we are already at a point where it would seem to be possible to use a simple description of current events to spur a broad clamor among the American electorate for immediate climate action from government and private industry.

But we don’t seem to be getting much further in making our case. Americans broadly think climate change is real and needs to be tackled, but a sense of true urgency is muted. Why is that?

The immediate problem is simple: how do we get traction in the current hysterical news cycle?

How do we get heard over the blaring headlines about felonies, possibly staged assassination attempts, October surprises, Nazi-stye rallies, and looming escalation of the war in the Middle East - not to mention the disgusting spectacle of Jeff Bozo and Elon Muck doing a double “disappearing democracy” act?

It’s easy to forget these days that climate change trumps (sorry) EVERYTHING.

The economy is important. Listening to Trump blather on about tariffs while unemployment is at an all time low and the economy is robust under Democratic leadership is nerve-wracking, but this becomes nothing more than a misery multiplier if we are all either sloshing around in toxic bilge water or burning to death in our beds.

The erosion of women’s reproductive rights under an evangelical GOP is horrifying. But women's issues also include food security – of which there will be less and less if there are widespread droughts and crop disruptions.

The full frontal assault on unions is retrograde and must be fought tooth and nail. That said, it pales in comparison to the possibility that if we don't do something NOW, the American west is going to be uninhabitable: 114 degrees in the shade with raging, unquenchable wildfires. We are practically there already. Can we risk letting things get worse?

There is work to be done on our immigration system, but while the MAGA-loons hoot and holler about the border, what we see now is nothing compared to the waves of desperate people who will soon be fleeing heat waves and rising sea levels. Massive displacement is coming, and probably sooner than we think.

For anything substantive to be done about climate change we need folks across the political spectrum to feel the same engagement that many progressives already feel. We need many more Americans to feel the same urgency and drive to DO something, and do it NOW.

To do that, we must insist that the media and the Democrats we vote for in November cut the clutter, obfuscation, and greenwashing and say it loud and clear: climate change is an immediate pocketbook issue. Climate change will cost you money, damage your health, bankrupt you - cost you your life. You need to understand what’s going on, and those of us in government have an obligation to help you.

Politicians talking about “our grandkids’ future” and “clean air and water” isn’t cutting it. Media reporting on “wildlife in Madagascar” and “tropical islands in rising seas” isn’t doing the trick. Those messages have already moved those of us who were susceptible, but they don’t seem important or real to everyone.

We humans simply aren’t wired to respond to dangers in the future or over a distant horizon. We’re wired by our evolutionary history to respond to things like “snake!” or “lion!” or “fire!” We’re adapted to respond to threats that pop up suddenly and need to be dealt with pronto.

Someone hollering “SNAKE!” is scary to most people.

A newspaper writing “POTENTIAL EVENTUAL HABITAT LOSS IF EMISSIONS ARE NOT REDUCED WITHIN 20 YEARS, WARN SCIENTISTS!” is not.

Our ancestors didn’t spend a lot of time thinking, “We’re eating a lot of berries and birds in this valley. Are we eating too much? What’ll happen in five years?  Will we have to move if the food runs out?”

No. They shot the birds and picked the berries and moved on to the next valley when food got scarce – and we’re still basically living that way today. As a species, being scared enough of future consequences to take present tense action is not our strong suit. Planning ahead for unknown risks is not in our sweet spot.

But in a grim stroke of terrible luck, we now DO have things to talk about in the present tense, bolded, with an exclamation point.

• Wildfires!

• Hurricanes!

• Flooding!

• Heatwaves!

• Drought!

• Crop failure!

These are scary things with immediate financial and health consequences for average people. It’s time for a clear, bold message in plain English, without caveats, footnotes, and equivocation.

Climate change isn’t a complex scientific concept. And it isn’t an intellectual abstraction - a thing that will make far away brown people lose their homes to sea level rise in 80 years. IT IS A REAL THING THAT IS HAPPENING NOW AND RUINING AMERICAN LIVES.

Climate change is not boring, or nerdy, or “just a theory,” or a “Chinese hoax.” Climate change is a pouncing lion. A ravenous croc. It is a fucking SNAKE. And we collectively do not realize that soon, well… we may actually be doomed.

Four in 10 Americans are one bill away from disaster, but most folks who were wiped out by this year’s catastrophic hurricane season probably have no idea there’s an economic connection between their misery and climate change. We need to demand that the media and our elected Democrats make that connection!

Discussions of the California wildfires should ALWAYS include a reference to climate change.  It may not be the proximate cause, but it’s a threat multiplier, making things worse. Losing your house costs you money right now, not in 2100.

People worry about insurance. What happens when a heavy downpour in the “new normal” floods the basement, and you don’t have flood insurance?  Huge bill... unexpected costly repairs... can’t make the car payment… the old familiar death spiral. This is a key pocketbook issue that must be hammered home.

What about heat? For someone living paycheck to paycheck, especially if that person has a child with asthma or an elderly parent with health problems, heat can be a literal killer. People are suffering NOW, not in some distant future.

Sea level rise is taking out whole swathes of Louisiana and it’s poised to devastate the economy.  Folks who work in tourism or fishing will be losing their jobs.

Infrastructure lost to devastating weather will need to be repaired or replaced. Who will pay? You and me, the little guys. We need to get people fired the fuck up about this!

And food? With produce prices escalating, affordable healthy meals move further and further out of reach, stretching budgets to the breaking point. Climate change will drive food insecurity, and not just in the developing world. This needs to be reported on the news, and talked about by our Blue Wave candidates. It’s urgent!

The time is now to get out and shout "SNAKE!"

All Americans need to know why climate change won’t make heat waves and flooding and fires worse when their grandnephew will be out of college, it is doing that TODAY.

They deserve to know that because the GOP won’t do anything they personally stand to lose big in the very near term.

It’s time to find that extra minute to look up from the scarifying BREAKING NEWS banner during the evening news and send a message about climate change to our local TV anchors, our local Democratic candidates, and every media outlet we consume. Everyone’s still on Twitter and they do pay attention if they get enough mentions.

Write – call – boycott – we need to do more to make MSNBC and CBS and CNN and the rest of the corporate media know it’s their actual job to educate those people who are not “opting in” to climate change news. Climate change news isn’t just for science nerds — it’s for everyone who wants food on the table, a dwelling that isn’t being swept downriver in a flood, and some expectation that when the worst hits, their government will have planned ahead and made some basic provisions for their safety.

The media has dropped the ball thus far, but pressure from us might get them to do the right thing. Remember, it’s now mainstream to say that Trump is lying - but it wasn’t the norm for YEARS, and to the extent that the media calls out his lies, we have progressive voices to thank.

Likewise, Democratic politicians who would otherwise not put climate change in their Top Five issues need to be reminded that it’s existential, that the truth must be told, and that while we’ll probably “vote blue no matter who” in November, WE ARE WATCHING. And we want them to ACT.

I know: we have only so much energy. There are only so many hours in the day for activism, and only so many afternoons we can take off work to flood the streets and snarl traffic and make our voices heard.

To be fair, right now - with just a week to go before the election - there’s not a lot that is more immediately pressing. But when we’ve done our GOTV thing, and Kamala Harris is in the White House, can we all dig a little deeper and find the time and energy to yell a little bit harder, and more effectively, about our climate? 

Once Dump is off the stage – and he will be once he loses decisively – there will be a MOUNTAIN of work to do. But we don’t have time to wait any longer on climate change. We are quite literally at the Very Last Fucking Minute. 

We’re already too late to stave off a lot of mayhem. But if we pull together and act, we just might - might - be able to get governments to do the right thing, institute rationing, impose a carbon tax, and make some sensible, concrete plans for moving as many people as possible out of immediate harm’s way.

It’s worth a try, no?