Resistance

After the disappointment with the failure of global policy progress at COP25 in Spain, the activism of many climate change resistance groups has increased, including eXtinction Rebellion (XR) and the US Mayors' Climate group which is moving forward with public policy in states across the country in spite of resistance from our right-wing government and its climate deniers, funded by corporate fossil fuel money. The Trump administration is the worst offender in this, given the complete capture of the Republican party by corporate money which is dismantling the voting process and undermining democracy itself. It's out-of-control vulture capitalism that obstructs all attempts to deal with climate change.

On this point about transnational, trans-class solidarity and climate justice, it might be worth taking a look at Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si, which has probably been the most important book on these questions in a generation. In a series of statements that Pope Francis makes in that text, he reconfigures Catholic theology as a process of forging a planetary solidarity for humanity, in a world still to come.

A US government climate change advisory group scrapped by Donald Trump has reassembled independently to call for better adaptation to the floods, wildfires and other threats that increasingly loom over American communities. They are moving ahead on their own initiative, as are many independent groups and companies that are taking on climate change on their own initiative.

Thus, Mission 2020: Climate Turning Point has come about, a collaborative campaign to bend the greenhouse-gas emissions curve downwards by 2020. The website is here.

Former New York City mayor and Bloomberg Philanthropies CEO Michael Bloomberg has announced his biggest commitment yet to tackle the climate crisis head on. Bloomberg’s “Beyond Carbon” initiative, made public on June 7, will make grants to organizations, including the Sierra Club, to move the US entirely off fossil fuels. More information is in the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, which is part of the "Beyond Carbon" initiative. From Bloomberg: "Over the last few years, I have chaired an international effort called the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures. We created a set of recommendations to help companies measure and disclose information about how climate change could affect their facilities, their supply chains, their labor force, their delivery of products and services and other essential operations."