Attention to the Unseen

Michael E. Mann writes: President Joe Biden, in his first weeks in office, already has advanced a sweeping agenda to tackle the climate crisis by addressing the health, economic, inequity and foreign policy aspects of the problem. An executive order he issued last week establishes climate as an essential consideration in U.S. foreign policy and national security, recognizing the importance of restoring our role as a leader in the international effort to avert catastrophic climate change. By labeling climate change…

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Bill McKibben writes: The blizzard of federal climate initiatives last week (a blizzard that might help allow actual blizzards to persist into the future) is without precedent. For the first time in the thirty-plus years of our awareness of the climate crisis, Washington roused itself to urgent action; veterans of the cautious Obama Administration—the domestic climate adviser Gina McCarthy and the global climate czar John Kerry chief among them—were suddenly going for broke. In fact, only one branch of the…

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Jody Freeman writes: General Motors’ announcement last week that it will stop making gas-powered cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles by 2035 and become carbon neutral by 2040 is even bolder than it sounds: The repercussions will ripple broadly across the economy, accelerating the transition to a broader electric future powered by renewable energy. The pledge by the nation’s largest automaker to phase out internal combustion engines puts pressure on other auto companies, like Ford and Toyota, to make equally…

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Markets Insider reports: S&P Global Ratings has put some of the biggest oil companies in the world on notice that it could soon downgrade their credit ratings thanks to heightened concerns about climate change and a global push towards greener energy. The agency – one of the three most influential ratings firms in the world – said it could downgrade the ratings of Chevron, Exxon, Shell and Total among others. It downgraded the outlook, although not the rating, for both…

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Elizabeth Kolbert writes: Nine years ago, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse had a sign made up that showed a photograph of the Earth as seen from space. “TIME TO WAKE UP,” it urged, in large, unevenly spaced letters. Every week that the Senate was in session, Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, would tote the sign to the chamber, set it on an easel, and, before a hundred chairs—most of them empty—deliver a speech. Though the details changed, the subject of the…

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Bill McKibben writes: January 27th was the most remarkable day in the history of America’s official response to the climate crisis, at least since that June afternoon in 1988, when nasa’s James Hansen told a congressional committee that the planet had begun to heat. On Wednesday, in the course of a few hours, the Biden Administration took a series of coördinated actions that, considered together, may well mark the official beginning of the end of the fossil-fuel era. The Biden…

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The Guardian reports: Joe Biden has moved to reinstate the US to the Paris climate agreement just hours after being sworn in as president, as his administration rolls out a cavalcade of executive orders aimed at tackling the climate crisis. Biden’s executive action, signed in the White House on Wednesday, will see the US rejoin the international effort curb the dangerous heating of the planet, following a 30-day notice period. The world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases was withdrawn…

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Michael E. Mann writes: First, Americans, let’s congratulate ourselves for having used the power of our vote to create an opportunity for meaningful progress on climate going forward. Joe Biden’s victory in the recent presidential race ushers in a new era of domestic progress and global cooperation. It allows us to begin to repair some of the damage that was done by Donald Trump’s presidency during the past four years—damage inflicted both to our own efforts to address the climate…

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The Washington Post reports: President-elect Joe Biden added more than a half-dozen climate staffers to his White House team Thursday, drawing from the ranks of green groups, environmental justice advocates and former Democratic administration officials to grow an inner circle that will help him try to slash the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. The new hires include David J. Hayes, who served as Interior deputy secretary under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; Cecilia Martinez, a prominent environmental justice advocate based…

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