Actions and Resources

You can’t have climate change without sacrifice zones, 

and you can’t have sacrifice zones without disposable people, 

and you can't have disposable people without racism.

Hop Hopkins (Director of Organizational Transformation for the Sierra Club), “Racism is Killing the Planet,” 

Sierra: The Magazine of the Sierra Club, 8 June 2020, web. 

Transition is inevitable. Justice is not.

Climate Justice Alliance

Every fraction of a degree matters. 

UN Environment Programme [UNEP] Gap Emissions Report 2022, xvi.

Why despair is not an option, and your commitment to collective action does matter

Every tenth of a degree of additional warming that we prevent will save lives, preserve communities and cultures, lessen displacement due to climate change, and decrease conflict.

Considering just as well as safe earth system boundaries focuses on the people and populations who will be pushed out of what Timothy M. Lenton et al, in their study “Quantifying the Human Cost of Global Warming," call the "human climate niche":

We show that climate change has already put ~9% of people (>600 million) outside this niche. By end-of-century (2080–2100), current policies leading to around 2.7 °C global warming could leave one-third (22–39%) of people outside the niche.

While current NDC scenarios project a future of 2.7 ºC global warming, limiting global warming to 1.5 ºC will vastly decrease the numbers harmed:

Assuming a future world of 9.5 billion, India has the greatest population exposed under 2.7 ºC global warming,  >600 million, but this reduces >6-fold to ~90 million at 1.5 ºC global warming. Nigeria has the second largest population exposed, >300 million under 2.7 ºC global warming, but this reduces >7-fold to <40 million at 1.5 ºC global warming. For third-ranked Indonesia, hot exposure reduces >20-fold, from ~100 million under 2.7 ºC global warming to <5 million at 1.5 ºC global warming. For fourth- and fifth-ranked Philippines and Pakistan with >80 million exposed under 2.7 ºC global warming, there are even larger proportional reductions at 1.5 ºC global warming.  (emphases added)

Timothy M. Lenton et al, “Quantifying the Human Cost of Global Warming,” Nature Sustainability, 22 May 2023.

Note that this study does not include additional harms to populations due to sea level rise, increasing climate extremes (e.g., ”weather events”), and permafrost thawing.

(Click to read more.)

What does this mean for you as an individual?

Undoubtedly, structural changes are necessary to enable sustainable and regenerative choices by individuals. And collective action is needed to advocate for those structural changes. Engaging in collective action is the most important thing you can do as an individual. Reflecting on the ethics of our personal choices can motivate commitments to collective action.

The U.S. has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Gap Emissions Report 2022, (p. xvii). The harms of individualized consumerism, especially in the U.S., are evident. Those who have contributed least to global emissions are typically those who will be most harmed. Lenton et al put it this way:

The lifetime emissions of ~3.5 global average citizens today (or ~1.2 average US citizens) expose one future person to unprecedented heat by end-of-century. That person comes from a place where emissions today are around half of the global average.

What will you do to prevent global warming beyond 1.5 ºC? Which future scenario will you choose?

Actions

The Brandeis Campus: Actions Devised by Students in Performing Climate Justice

Sign up for Meal Exchange Gifting (Google form).

(Click to read more.)

Indigenous Sovereignty and Climate Justice

Support the Massachusetts Indigenous Legislative Agenda

Subscribe to Honor the Earth Action Alerts

Climate Advocacy (Massachusetts Residents)

Get involved with the 350 Mass campaigns for 2023-24: Make Polluters Pay and Emissions Free Buildings

A message from Tom King:

350 Mass and I, along with a large coalition of youth climate, labor, and other groups, are working on a campaign to make the largest fossil fuel companies pay restitution for damages they have caused. Please join the Make Polluters Pay campaign, modeled on the widely supported Superfund Act, by signing our petition to MA Governor Maura Healy. The harms caused by fossil fuel companies (who have known about these harms for decades and lied to the public about what they knew) have especially impacted lower income and environmental justice (or “gateway”) communities where fossil fuel infrastructure is located; but all of us are directly impacted by global climate emissions. The Make Polluters Pay campaign will make the biggest oil and gas companies pay $75 billion over 25 years for the costs of the climate crisis — a drop in the bucket given their profits. Funds will be distributed by the state’s Climate Change Adaptation Fund to support, local community adaptation and resilience. Will you join us and call on Governor Healey to create the Climate Change Adaptation Superfund by signing our petition?

Thank you!v

Resources

A very accessible presentation on reducing emissions and protecting biodiversity, while promoting the wellness of human communities: Drawdown Ignite webinar with Project Drawdown Executive Director Jonathan Foley, "State of the Climate: Looking back at 2023 and ahead to 2024," 13 December 2023. A highly recommended excerpt: 5:01 - 28:20.


Transformative Climate Justice 

The Bali Principles of Climate Justice, 29 August 2002, web.

The Indigenous Environmental Network’s Indigenous Principles of Just Transition, web.

Climate Justice Alliance, “What Do We Mean By Just Transition?,” web.

“The Climate Justice Declaration,” Conference on Environmental Justice and Global Climate Change, The University of Michigan, March 2004.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, web.