Recommended ONLINE TEXT RESOURCES
"The Case for Fossil Fuel Divestment" - Bill McKibben's powerful February 2013 article in Rolling Stone. See also Bill's other online essays:
♦ "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math" (July 2012)
♦ "Is Keystone XL Pipeline the 'Stonewall' of the Climate Movement?"
♦ "The Fossil Fuel Resistance", April 2013.
♦ (with Van Jones) "Martin Luther King and the call to direct action on climate", April 2013.
InsideClimateNews.org" - well organized, comprehensive site for all aspects of climate change news (e.g., "Climate Change Divestment Campaign Spreads to America's Churches".)
"Climate Change: The Next Generation" - complete, easy-to-use (by title), online access to key news reports on climate science, events, and statistics, listed chronologically by year/month. Just click on a title and scroll down to view/read the article. Then scroll back up and click on another title you are curious about. It is thus a superbly efficient way to ensure that no crucial scientific or political news passes you by.
"Climate Denial Crock of the Week" - compendium of the best and the worst in climate crisis news, updated daily. Because embedded videos are abundant, this site is an excellent way for activists to stay on the leading edge without having to read a lot.
"Climate Progress" - compilation of best blogs on the science of and solutions to human-induced climate change, edited by Joe Romm.
"Climate Central" - an independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the American public.
"Global Warming & Climate Change" - superb and constantly updated history of international climate action (by The New York Times)
Paul Gilding's blog - Gilding is the author of The Great Disruption. A superb writer and thinker, Gilding is the primary climate advocate we turn to when we verge toward depression. If you, too, would benefit from a dose of realistic optimism (thanks to Gilding's big picture perspective), see especially these posts: 20 March 2013, "Victory at Hand for the Climate Movement?" and his 23 August 2012, "The End of the Industrial Revolution". Note, the latter begins, "What a privilege it is to be alive in these times, in such a significant period in human history. It's not always easy to see moments of great historical importance when you're in the middle of them. Sometimes they're dramatic, like the fall of the Berlin Wall or the landing on the moon. But more often the really big ones appear, from within them, to be unfolding in slow motion. Their actual drama and speed then only becomes clear in hindsight. That's how it will be with this. But in the end we'll look back at this moment and say, yes, that's when it was clear, that's when the end game began. The end game of the industrial revolution." Also, "Will the techno-optimists save the world?"
Climate Citizen - excellent and richly illustrated blog produced in Australia but reporting on significant climate events globally.
350.org - includes access, as well, to "Do the Math Tour," "Fossil Free" (divestment of oil/coal stocks), "Tar Sands Action," and more
"Carbon Tax Center" - blogs and news links on progress toward a carbon tax. See also: "Forget Kyoto: Putting a Tax on Carbon Consumption" by Dieter Helm
"Citizens Climate Lobby" - activist group endorsed by James Hansen that guides the formation and empowerment of local-group actions toward fostering systemic change (through local newspaper writings, visits with Congressional representatives, etc.)
"Cool City Challenge: Reinventing Our Cities From the Bottom Up to Achieve Dramatic Carbon Reduction, Deep Resiliency, and Green Prosperity" - An initiative of the Empowerment Institute to produce measurable behavior change, block-by-block, household-by-household. Includes the workbook Low Carbon Diet: A 30-Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds
The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring on the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World - by Paul Guilding (book / audiobook)
Storms of My Grandchildren - by James Hansen (book / audiobook)
Eaarth: Making a Living on a Tough New Planet - by Bill McKibben (book / audiobook)
Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril - edited by Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael Nelson. See also a 48-minute video of Moore (a moral philosopher) presenting on this topic, titled, "Ethics of Climate Change: It's Wrong to Wreck the World"
The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century's Sustainability Crisis - edited by Richard Heinberg and Daniel Lerch
The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality - by Richard Heinberg
A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (2011 book by Stephen Gardiner, professor of philosophy at University of Washington)
AL GORE's early and continuing role in climate advocacy: "An Inconvenient Truth" (2006 documentary film); Our Choice (2009 book); 2008 TED Talk: "Al Gore: New Thinking on Climate Crisis"; Alliance for Climate Protection (umbrella group for many advocacy campaigns initiated by Gore)
"It's Global Warming, Stupid", Businessweek, 1 November 2012.
"Scenarios and Global Warming — a futurist perspective from Keith Orndoff", blog of 21 December 2012.
Best Videos
A superb text intro to the jet stream is:
"A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream". |
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| LEFT: Rutgers University climatologist Jennifer Francis is not only one of the top researchers on climate change but perhaps the best teacher for the serious learner. Both in her oral explanations and the images and animations she uses to illustrate scientific concepts, she is unsurpassed. Her specialty is the Arctic and her 2012 research brought forth important new understandings of how Arctic Sea Ice melt alters the jet stream — from a linear west-to-east whoosh across the upper northern hemisphere into a very weird meandering snake. The shift to a north-south curvy meander, in turn, sets up "blocks" that hold summer high heat over middle North America and also "blocks" Atlantic hurricanes from turning eastward as they head north (hence, Superstorm Sandy in 2012). Note: VIDEO left by Connie Barlow excerpted the original 112-min video into just 40 minutes of spell-binding education.
Or, view just the 5-minute segment on understanding the JET STREAM of Jennifer Francis's longer talk, which is essential for comprehending how a warming Arctic can produce unusually cold springs in temperate latitudes. |
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LEFT: Given the exceptional cold and duration of the spring of 2013 in the eastern USA (and especially in contrast to the exceptional warmth of March 2012), there is nothing more important than communicating to the public how the loss of Arctic sea ice (owing to overall "global warming" that amplifies especially in the Arctic) affects the jet stream, which in turn affects the weather. Here, climate videographer Peter Sinclair brings together the science of the jet stream, as told by two scientific notables: Jennifer Francis (Rutgers University) and Jeff Masters (Weather Underground).
RIGHT: Dr. Marshall Shepard is the 2013 president of the American Meteorological Society and is one of the nation's leading climate scientists. Here he explains how he goes about knocking down the "zombie theories" that plague our discussions about climate change. What is a zombie theory? Says Shepherd: "It's one of those theories that scientists have refuted or disproven time and time again, but they live on like zombies in the blogs and on the radio stations." Another superb analogy he uses: "Weather is your mood; climate is your personality."
LEFT: Video of 2013 report of fossils of giant camels that lived in n. Ellesmere Island 3.5 million years ago (discovered by paleobiologist Natalia Rybczynski), indicating a much warming Arctic.
RIGHT: 2013 video of paleoecologist Lisa Graumlich explaining how climate change is melting away the glaciers of Glacier National Park — and how soon they might be gone.
LEFT: "All In with Chris Hayes" program on MSNBC 9 May 2013. Topic: "As Republicans block President Obama's nominee to head the EPA, Chris Hayes notes that carbon in the atmosphere is about to hit its highest level since the Pliocene Era, three to five million years ago, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse smacks down a colleague who says God won't allow us to ruin the Earth."
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Full 17-minute speech by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on 8 May 2013 (which is summarized by Chris Hayes in the video left). The speech is titled "Time to Wake Up: Magical Thinking on Climate Change". Here Senator Whitehouse uses biblical imagery and power to refute the final remnants of climate denialism (and their funders) that are blocking action on climate change legislation and regulation in Congress.
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TED Talk May 2012: Best short overview of why climate change is real and why it must be stopped. Physicist and blogger David Roberts presents on this topic at Evergreen University in Olympia, Washington.
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TED Talk March 2012: Top climatologist, James Hansen, who has been researching and publishing on anthropogenic climate change since 1981, explains why he became a climate activist (even to the point of getting arrested in civil disobedience actions). |
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Click image above to watch Bill McKibben
lecture at Dominican University
His talk begins 14 minutes into the program.
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Click image above to watch a climatology leader
and former head of the IPCC (Robert Watson)
present a 2012 talk to fellow scientists
at the 2012 meeting of American Geophysical Union. |
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Video: Van Jones on the Keystone Pipeline Van Jones blogs: President Obama said in his second inaugural address that failing to act on climate change would "betray future generations." Now, it looks like he will do exactly that by approving the Keystone XL pipeline. I made a new video about what is at stake, please take a look. (posted May 2013) |
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Video of Rev. Dowd's new sermon,
"God Rebukes Religious Right: Repent or Face Hell and High Water" Rev. Michael Dowd delivered an entirely new sermon on January 6 at the two Sunday morning services at Jefferson Unitarian Church in Golden, CO. Dowd presents "God" (Reality personified) as rebuking scriptural literalists for stalling collective action in response to climate change by engaging in denial or distortion of facts. Audio podcast of sermon is also online, as is a 2-minute video excerpt, where Dowd challenges baby boomers to leave a great legacy re climate change and death. (posted January 2013) |
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CLICK VIDEO LEFT: Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt urges both liberals and conservatives to acknowledge the "asteroids" (most worrisome issues) in the other's camp as well as their own. Climate change is a major "asteroid" that liberals see heading for a collision with Earth, while Boomers using Medicare entitlements is a major "asteroid" that conservatives point to as a fiscal problem that must be dealt with. These 2 issues of tremendous moral consequence are also what Dowd highlights in his 2-minute video excerpt (above). Jon Haidt initiated a new website, The Asteroids Club to encourage further discussion. |
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Click image left to watch "Chasing Ice"
film 3-min trailer (2012).
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Click image right to watch tearful testimonial
of a climate-change denier whose
worldview shifted because of this film. |
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse lambasts
climate-change deniers in December 2012.
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Click image right to watch Kathleen Dean Moore's
keynote presentation on YouTube:
"Red Sky at Morning: Ethics and the Oceanic Crisis."
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Good review of 2012 climate events, denier's
response, and sharp rise in public concern
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"Global Warming Over the Last 16 Years"
Jan 2013, by SkepticalScience
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President Obama made a strong promise
to combat climate change in his January
2013 second inaugural address.
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"Bidder 70", 2012 award-winning film about
climate activist Tim DeChristopher's disruption
of oil & gas leasing auction, and imprisonment.
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January 2013 AUSTRALIA's record-breaking heat and fire is presented in this excellent collage of video clips.
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"Rev. Billy Freak-Out About Climate Change"
after he read Bill McKibben's July 2012 article.
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