2021/04/08

Climate crisis - Wikipedia

Climate crisis - Wikipedia

Climate crisis

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This article is about the term or expression, "Climate crisis". For substantive discussion of the current warming of the Earth's climate system, see Climate change. For formal recognition of climate change as a crisis or emergency, see Climate emergency declaration. For climate communication in general, see Climate communication.
Logo of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis (formation authorized January 9, 2019).[1] The original House climate committee (formed in 2007), called the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming,[2] was abolished when Republicans regained control of the House in 2011.[3]

Climate crisis is a term describing global warming and climate change, and their consequences.

The term has been used to describe the threat of global warming to the planet, and to urge aggressive climate change mitigation.[2][4][3][5] For example, a January 2020 BioScience article endorsed by over 11,000 scientists worldwide, stated that "the climate crisis has arrived" and that an "immense increase of scale in endeavors to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis."[6]

The term is applied by those who "believe it evokes the gravity of the threats the planet faces from continued greenhouse gas emissions and can help spur the kind of political willpower that has long been missing from climate advocacy".[2] They believe that, much as "global warming" drew out more emotional engagement and support for action than "climate change",[2][7][8] calling climate change a crisis could have an even stronger impact.[2]

A study has shown that the term does invoke a strong emotional response in conveying a sense of urgency,[9] but some caution that this very response may be counter-productive,[10] and may cause a backlash effect due to perceptions of alarmist exaggeration.[11][12]

Scientific basis[edit]

While powerful language had long been used in advocacy, politics and media, until the late 2010s the scientific community traditionally remained more constrained in its language.[13] However, in a November 2019 statement published in the January 2020 issue of the scientific journal BioScience, a group of over 11,000 scientists argued that describing global warming as a climate emergency or climate crisis was appropriate.[14] The scientists stated that an "immense increase of scale in endeavor" is needed to conserve the biosphere, but noted "profoundly troubling signs" including sustained increases in livestock populations, meat production, tree cover loss, fossil fuel consumption, air transport, and CO2 emissions—concurrent with upward trends in climate impacts such as rising temperatures, global ice melt, and extreme weather.[6]

Also in November 2019, an article published in Nature concluded that evidence from climate tipping points alone suggests that "we are in a state of planetary emergency", defining emergency as a product of risk and urgency, with both factors judged to be "acute".[15] The Nature article referenced recent IPCC Special Reports (2018, 2019) suggesting individual tipping points could be exceeded with as little as 1—2 °C of global average warming (current warming is ~1°C), with a global cascade of tipping points possible with greater warming.[15]

Definitions[edit]

In the context of climate change, Pierre Mukheibir, Professor of Water Futures at the University of Technology Sydney, states that the term crisis is "a crucial or decisive point or situation that could lead to a tipping point," one involving an "unprecedented circumstance."[5] A dictionary definition states that "crisis" in this context means "a turning point or a condition of instability or danger," and implies that "action needs to be taken now or else the consequences will be disastrous."[16] Another definition differentiates the term from global warming and climate change and defines climate crisis as "the various negative effects that unmitigated climate change is causing or threatening to cause on our planet, especially where these effects have a direct impact on humanity."[12]

Use of the term[edit]

Historical[edit]

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has used crisis terminology since the 1980s, with the term being formalized by the Climate Crisis Coalition (formed in 2004).[2]

A 1990 report from the American University International Law Review includes selected materials that repeatedly use the term "crisis".[4] Included in that report, "The Cairo Compact: Toward a Concerted World-Wide Response to the Climate Crisis" (December 21, 1989) states that "All nations... will have to cooperate on an unprecedented scale. They will have to make difficult commitments without delay to address this crisis."[4]

Recent[edit]

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders at the December, 2018, "Solving Our Climate Crisis, a National Town Hall"

In the late 2010s, the phrase emerged "as a crucial piece of the climate hawk lexicon", being adopted by the Green New Deal, The Guardian, Greta Thunberg, and U.S. Democratic political candidates such as Kamala Harris.[2] At the same time, it came into more popular use "after a spate of dire scientific warnings and revived energy in the advocacy world".[2]

In late 2018, the United States House of Representatives established the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, a term that a journalist wrote in The Atlantic is "a reminder of how much energy politics have changed in the last decade".[17] The original House climate committee (formed in 2007) had been called the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming,[2] and was abolished when Republicans regained control of the House in 2011.[3]

Public Citizen reported that in 2018, less than 10% of articles in top-50 U.S. newspapers used the terms "crisis" or "emergency".[18] In 2019, a "Call it a Climate Crisis" campaign urging major media organizations to adopt the term, stated that in 2018, only 3.5% of national television news segments referred to climate change as a crisis or emergency,[19] (50 of 1400),[18] though Public Citizen reported triple that number of mentions, 150, in just the first four months of 2019.[18]

Letter to Major Networks:
Call It a Climate Crisis—
and Cover It Like One
    The words that reporters and anchors use matter. What they call something shapes how millions see it—and influences how nations act. And today, we need to act boldly and quickly. With scientists warning of global catastrophe unless we slash emissions by 2030, the stakes have never been higher, and the role of news media never more critical.
    We are urging you to call the dangerous overheating of our planet, and the lack of action to stop it, what it is—a crisis––and to cover it like one.

Public Citizen open letter
June 6, 2019[20]

Following a September 2018 usage of "climate crisis" by U.N. secretary general António Guterres,[21] on May 17, 2019 The Guardian formally updated its style guide to favor "climate emergency, crisis or breakdown" and "global heating".[22][23] Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner explained, "We want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise, while also communicating clearly with readers on this very important issue. The phrase ‘climate change’, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity."[24] Similarly, in June 2019, Spanish news agency EFE announced its preferred phrase crisis climática (climate crisis), with Grist journalist Kate Yoder remarking that "these terms were popping up everywhere", adding that "climate crisis" is "having a moment".[18] In November 2019, the Hindustan Times also adopted the term because "climate change" "does not correctly reflect the enormity of the existential threat".[25] Similarly, Warsaw, Poland newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza uses the term "climate crisis" instead of "climate change", an editor-in-chief of its Gazeta na zielono (newspaper in green) section describing climate change as one of the most important topics the paper has ever covered.[26]

Conversely, in June, 2019 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation updated its language guide to read "Climate crisis and climate emergency are OK in some cases as synonyms for 'climate change'. But they're not always the best choice... For example, 'climate crisis' could carry a whiff of advocacy in certain political coverage".[27] The update prompted journalism professor Sean Holman to say that "journalists are being torn by two competing values right now"—to tell the truth and to appear unbiased—but that by telling the truth journalists appear to be biased to "large swaths of society... (that) don't believe in the truth".[27]

In June 2019, 70 climate activists were arrested for demonstrating outside the offices of The New York Times, urging the newspaper to adopt the phrases "climate emergency" or "climate crisis", the demonstration being part of public pressure that swayed the City Council to make New York the largest city to formally adopt a climate emergency declaration.[28]

In May 2019, Al Gore's Climate Reality Project (2011-) promoted an open petition asking news organizations to use "climate crisis" in place of "climate change" or "global warming",[2] saying "it’s time to abandon both terms in culture".[29] Likewise, the Sierra Club, the Sunrise Movement, Greenpeace, and other environmental and progressive organizations joined in a June 6, 2019 Public Citizen letter to news organizations,[18] urging them to call climate change and human inaction "what it is–a crisis–and to cover it like one".[20]

In November 2019, the Oxford Dictionaries included "climate crisis" on its short list for word of the year 2019, the designation designed to recognize terms that "reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year" and that should have "lasting potential as a term of cultural significance".[30]

In 2021, Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat created a free variable font called "Climate Crisis" having eight different weights that correlate with Arctic sea ice decline, visualizing how ice melt has changed over the decades.[31] The newspaper's art director posited that the font both evokes the aesthetics of environmentalism and inherently constitutes a data visualization graphic.[31]

Alternative terminology[edit]

Research has shown that what a phenomenon is called, or how it is framed, "has a tremendous effect on how audiences come to perceive that phenomenon"[11] and "can have a profound impact on the audience’s reaction".[21]

Google trends data shows that, following the 2006 release of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth,[32] "climate crisis" searches increased, with a resurgence beginning in late 2018. Also graphed: "climate emergency" searches (see Climate emergency declaration).

The effects of climate change are sometimes described in terms similar to climate crisis, such as:

In addition to "climate crisis", various other terms have been investigated for their effects on audiences, including "global warming", "climate change", and "climatic disruption",[11] as well as "environmental destruction", "weather destabilization", and "environmental collapse".[9]

Effectiveness[edit]

In September 2019, Bloomberg journalist Emma Vickers posited that crisis terminology—though the issue was one, literally, of semantics—may be "showing results", citing a 2019 poll by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation saying that 38% of U.S. adults termed climate change "a crisis" while an equal number called it "a major problem but not a crisis".[3] Five years earlier, U.S. adults considering it a crisis numbered only 23%.[44]

Conversely, use of crisis terminology in various non-binding climate emergency declarations has not been effective (as of September 2019) in making governments "shift into action".[5]

Concerns about crisis terminology[edit]

Some commentators have written that "emergency framing" may have several disadvantages.[10] Specifically, such framing may implicitly prioritize climate change over other important social issues, thereby encouraging competition among activists rather than cooperation and sidelining dissent within the climate change movement itself.[10] It may suggest a need for solutions by government, which provides less reliable long-term commitment than does popular mobilization, and which may be perceived as being "imposed on a reluctant population".[10] Finally, it may be counterproductive by causing disbelief (absent immediate dramatic effects), disempowerment (in the face of a problem that seems overwhelming), and withdrawal—rather than providing practical action over the long term.[10]

Along similar lines, Australian climate communication researcher David Holmes has commented on the phenomenon of "crisis fatigue", in which urgency to respond to threats loses its appeal over time.[13] Holmes said there is a "limited semantic budget" for such language, cautioning that it can lose audiences if time passes without meaningful policies addressing the emergency.[13]

Others have written that, whether "appeals to fear generate a sustained and constructive engagement" is clearly a highly complex issue but that the answer is "usually not", with psychologists noting that humans' responses to danger (fight, flight, or freeze) can be maladaptive.[45] Agreeing that fear is a "paralyzing emotion", Sander van der Linden, director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, favors "climate crisis" over other terms because it conveys a sense of both urgency and optimism, and not a sense of doom because "people know that crises can be avoided and that they can be resolved".[21]

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe warned in early 2019 that crisis framing is only "effective for those already concerned about climate change, but complacent regarding solutions".[12] She added that it "is not yet effective" for those who perceive climate activists "to be alarmist Chicken Littles", positing that "it would further reinforce their pre-conceived—and incorrect—notions".[12]

In June 2019, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation updated its language guide to read that the term climate crisis "could carry a whiff of advocacy in certain political coverage".[27]

Two German journalists have respectively warned that "crisis" may be wrongly understood to suggest that climate change is "inherently episodic"—crises being "either solved or they pass"—or as a temporary state before a return to normalcy that is in fact not possible.[46]

Psychological and neuroscientific studies[edit]

A 2013 study (N=224, mostly college freshmen) surveyed participants' responses after they had read different simulated written articles.[11] The study concluded that "climate crisis was most likely to create backlash effects of disbelief and reduced perceptions of concern, most likely due to perceptions of exaggeration", and suggested that other terms ("climatic disruption" and "global warming") should instead be used, particularly when communicating with skeptical audiences.[11]

An early 2019 neuroscientific study (N=120, divided equally among Republicans, Democrats and independents)[47] by an advertising consulting agency involved electroencephalography (EEG) and galvanic skin response (GSR) measurements.[9] The study, measuring responses to the terms "climate crisis", "environmental destruction", "environmental collapse", "weather destabilization", "global warming" and "climate change", found that Democrats had a 60% greater emotional response to "climate crisis" than to "climate change", with the corresponding response among Republicans tripling.[47] "Climate crisis" is said to have "performed well in terms of responses across the political spectrum and elicited the greatest emotional response among independents".[47] The study concluded that the term "climate crisis" elicited stronger emotional responses than "neutral" and "worn out" terms like "global warming" and "climate change", thereby encouraging a sense of urgency—though not so strong a response as to cause cognitive dissonance that would cause people to generate counterarguments.[9] However, the CEO of the company conducting the study noted generally that visceral intensity can backfire, specifying that another term with an even stronger response, "environmental destruction", "is likely seen as alarmist, perhaps even implying blame, which can lead to counterarguing and pushback."[47]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "United States House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis / About". climatecrisis.house.gov. United States House of Representatives. 2019. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Crediting Shawna Faison and House Creative Services.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i j Sobczyk, Nick (July 10, 2019). "How climate change got labeled a 'crisis'". E & E News (Energy & Environmental News). Archived from the original on October 13, 2019.
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Vickers, Emma (September 17, 2019). "When Is Change a 'Crisis'? Why Climate Terms Matter". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on September 20, 2019.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b c Mukheibir, Pierre; Mallam, Patricia (September 30, 2019). "Climate crisis – what's it good for?". The Fifth Estate. Australia. Archived from the original on October 1, 2019.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b c Ripple, William J.; Wolf, Christopher; Newsome, Thomas M.; Barnard, Phoebe; Moomaw, William R. (January 1, 2020). "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency". BioScience. 70 (1): 8–12. doi:10.1093/biosci/biz088. ISSN 0006-3568.
  6. ^ Samenow, Jason (January 29, 2018). "Debunking the claim 'they' changed 'global warming' to 'climate change' because warming stopped". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 29, 2019.
  7. ^ Maibach, Edward; Leiserowitz, Anthony; Feinberg, Geoff; Rosenthal, Seth; Smith, Nicholas; Anderson, Ashley; Roser-Renouf, Connie (May 2014). "What's in a Name? Global Warming versus Climate Change". Yale Project on Climate Change, Center for Climate Change Communication. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.10123.49448.
  8. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Yoder, Kate (April 29, 2019). "Why your brain doesn't register the words 'climate change'". Grist. Archived from the original on July 24, 2019.
  9. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Hodder, Patrick; Martin, Brian (September 5, 2009). "Climate Crisis? The Politics of Emergency Framing" (PDF). Economic and Political Weekly. 44 (36): 53, 55–60. Archivedfrom the original on July 26, 2019.
  10. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e "Words That (Don't) Matter: An Exploratory Study of Four Climate Change Names in Environmental Discourse / Investigating the Best Term for Global Warming". naaee.org. North American Association for Environmental Education. 2013. Archived from the original on November 11, 2019.
  11. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Dean, Signe (May 25, 2019). "ScienceAlert Editor: Yes, It's Time to Update Our Climate Change Language". Science Alert. Archived from the original on July 31, 2019.
  12. ^ Jump up to:a b c Bedi, Gitanjali (January 3, 2020). "Is it time to rethink our language on climate change?". Monash Lens. Monash University (Melbourne, Australia). Archived from the original on January 31, 2020.
  13. ^ Carrington, Damian (November 5, 2019). "Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of 'untold suffering'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on January 14, 2020.
  14. ^ Jump up to:a b Lenton, Timothy M.; Rockström, Johan; Gaffney, Owen; Rahmstorf, Stefan; Richardson, Katherine; Steffen, Will; Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim (2019). "Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against". Nature. 575 (7784): 592–595. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0. PMID 31776487.
  15. ^ "What does climate crisis mean? / Where does climate crisis come from?". dictionary.com. December 2019. Archivedfrom the original on December 21, 2019.
  16. ^ Meyer, Robinson (December 28, 2018). "Democrats Establish a New House 'Climate Crisis' Committee". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on July 25, 2019.
  17. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Yoder, Kate (June 17, 2019). "Is it time to retire 'climate change' for 'climate crisis'?". Grist. Archived from the original on June 29, 2019.
  18. ^ "Call it a Climate Crisis". ActionNetwork.org. Archived from the original on 17 May 2019. Retrieved 26 July 2019. Earliest Wayback Machine archive is May 17, 2019.
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b "Letter to Major Networks: Call it a Climate Crisis – and Cover it Like One". citizen.org. Public Citizen. June 6, 2019. Archived from the original on October 17, 2019.
  20. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Rigby, Sara (January 3, 2020). "Climate change: should we change the terminology?". BBC Science Focus. Archived from the original on January 3, 2020.
  21. ^ Jump up to:a b Hickman, Leo (May 17, 2019). "The Guardian's editor has just issued this new guidance to all staff on language to use when writing about climate change and the environment..."Journalist Leo Hickman on Twitter. Archived from the original on November 15, 2019. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  22. ^ Carrington, Damian (17 May 2019). "Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment". the Guardian. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  23. ^ Carrington, Damian (May 17, 2019). "Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment / From now, house style guide recommends terms such as 'climate crisis' and 'global heating'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on October 6, 2019.
  24. ^ "Recognising the climate crisis". Hindustan Times. November 24, 2019. Archived from the original on November 25, 2019.
  25. ^ "Do European media take climate change seriously enough?". European Journalism Observatory (ejo.ch). Switzerland. February 18, 2020. Archived from the original on February 27, 2020.
  26. ^ Jump up to:a b c Findlay, Gillian (interviewer) (July 5, 2019). "Treat climate change like the crisis it is, says journalism professor". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on July 7, 2019. • Archive of CBC quote in Osoyoos Times.
  27. ^ Barnard, Anne (July 5, 2019). "A 'Climate Emergency' Was Declared in New York City. Will That Change Anything?". Archived from the original on October 11, 2019.
  28. ^ "Why Do We Call It the Climate Crisis?". climaterealityproject.org. The Climate Reality Project. May 1, 2019. Archived from the original on September 24, 2019.
  29. ^ Zhou, Naaman (November 20, 2019). "Oxford Dictionaries declares 'climate emergency' the word of 2019". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 21, 2019. "Climate emergency" was named word of the year.
  30. ^ Jump up to:a b Smith, Lilly (16 February 2021). "This chilling font visualizes Arctic ice melt". Fast Company. Archived from the original on 23 February 2021.
  31. ^ Rosenblad, Kajsa (December 18, 2017). "Review: An Inconvenient Sequel". Medium (Communication Science news and articles). Netherlands. Archived from the original on March 29, 2019. ... climate change, a term that Gore renamed to climate crisis
  32. ^ "Climate Change: The Facts". Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC Australia). August 2019. Archived from the original on November 11, 2019.
  33. ^ Flanagan, Richard (January 3, 2020). "Australia Is Committing Climate Suicide". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 3, 2020.
  34. ^ "Tackling Threats That Impact the Earth". World Wildlife Fund. 2019. Archived from the original on October 2, 2019.
  35. ^ Kalmus, Peter (August 29, 2018). "Stop saying "climate change" and start saying "climate breakdown."". @ClimateHuman on Twitter. Archived from the original on November 11, 2019.
  36. ^ Shannon, Noah Gallagher (April 10, 2019). "Climate Chaos Is Coming — and the Pinkertons Are Ready". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 5, 2019.
  37. ^ Jump up to:a b Kormann, Carolyn (July 11, 2019). "The Case for Declaring a National Climate Emergency". The New Yorker. Archivedfrom the original on October 6, 2019.
  38. ^ Watts, Jonathan (December 16, 2018). "Global warming should be called global heating, says key scientist". Grist. Archivedfrom the original on August 24, 2019.
  39. ^ Ryan, Jackson (November 5, 2019). "'Climate emergency': Over 11,000 scientists sound thunderous warning / The dire words are a call to action". CNET. Archived from the original on November 11, 2019.
  40. ^ McGinn, Miyo (November 5, 2019). "11,000 scientists say that the 'climate emergency' is here". Grist. Archived from the original on December 14, 2019.
  41. ^ Picazo, Mario (May 13, 2019). "Should we reconsider the term 'climate change'?". The Weather Network (CA). Archivedfrom the original on November 12, 2019. includes link to Thunberg's tweet: ● Thunberg, Greta (May 4, 2019). "It's 2019. Can we all now please stop saying "climate change" and instead call it what it is". twitter.com/GretaThunberg. Archived from the original on November 6, 2019. Retrieved November 11,2019.
  42. ^ Goldrick, Geoff (December 19, 2019). "2019 has been a year of climate disaster. Yet still our leaders procrastinate". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 31, 2019.
  43. ^ Guskin, Emily; Clement, Scott; Achenbach, Joel (December 9, 2019). "Americans broadly accept climate science, but many are fuzzy on the details". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 9, 2019.
  44. ^ Moser, Susan C.; Dilling, Lisa (December 2004). "Making Climate Hot / Communicating the Urgency and Challenge of Global Climate Change" (PDF). University of Colorado. pp. 37–38. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 10, 2017.Footnotes 33-37. Also published: December 2004, Environment,volume 46, no. 10, pp. 32–46.
  45. ^ Reimer, Nick (September 19, 2019). "Climate Change orClimate Crisis – What's the right lingo?". Germany. Clean Energy Wire. Archived from the original on November 15, 2019.
  46. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Berardelli, Jeff (May 16, 2019). "Does the term "climate change" need a makeover? Some think so — here's why". CBS News. Archived from the original on November 8, 2019.

Further reading[edit]

Posted by at

Bill Gates: How to help prevent a climate change disaster

Bill Gates: How to help prevent a climate change disaster


POWER PLAYERS

Bill Gates: This is what you — yes, you — can do to help prevent a climate change disaster
Published Thu, Feb 18 2021

Catherine Clifford@CATCLIFFORD

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, speaks during the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing, China, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019.
Takaaki Iwabu | Bloomberg | Getty Images

If humanity can successfully mitigate climate change, ”[i]t’ll be the most amazing thing mankind has ever done,” according to Bill Gates.

It will take an “all-out effort, you know, like a world war, but it’s us against greenhouse gases,” Gates told Anderson Cooper on Sunday’s “60 Minutes” episode.

Gates is relentlessly optimistic. “There are days when it looks very hard. If people think it’s easy, they’re wrong. If people think it’s impossible they’re wrong,” he said.

“It can seem overwhelming.”

If combating climate change is overwhelming to billionaire philanthropist Gates, it certainly is so to the average person. But according to Gates, it’s important to remember that every person can help.


“It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of a problem as big as climate change,” Gates writes in his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” “But you’re not powerless. And you don’t have to be a politician or a philanthropist to make a difference. You have influence as a citizen, a consumer and an employee or employer.”

Here’s what you can do to combat climate change, according to Gates.

Get political


Averting what Gates calls a climate “disaster” will require new systems of energy production and delivery, which takes “concerted political action,” Gates writes.

“That’s why engaging in the political process is the most important single step that people from every walk of life can take,” he says.

Show your representatives that their consituents care about climate change by making calls, writing letters and speaking up in town halls.

“It may sound old-fashioned, but letters and phone calls to your elected officials can have a real impact,” Gates writes.


Be informed and specific in your interactions with politicians, too. For example, demand funding for clean energy innovation research or a carbon tax and let politicians know that your vote depends on their action, he says.

Grassroots activism is important becaus electricity in particular is often regulated and governed by statewide public utility commissions. Communicating with those officials can be an important lever for average citizens to press.

Or if you are so inspired, run for local office, Gates writes.
Use your spending power


Buy and use sustainable products, like a smart thermostat, for example, which will help regulate your energy consumption and use of greenhouse gas-emitting fuel sources. You can also vote with your wallet by doing things like signing up to buy your energy from a clean energy source and upgrading your old-fashioned light bulbs.

“When you pay more for an electric car, a heat pump, or a plant-based burger, you’re saying, ‘There’s a market for this stuff. We’ll buy it,’” Gates writes. And businesses do respond to that information “quite quickly, in my experience,” he says.
Demand more from your workplace


“As an employee or shareholder, you can push your company to do its part,” Gates writes.

While larger companies are going to make a larger impact in the collective reduction of greenhouse gases than smaller companies can, smaller companies can gather together in local organizations or chambers of commerce to make more measurable impact, Gates says. And larger companies can cooperate to put pressure on even larger suppliers.

Something like a program to plant trees is an easy first step. And some companies have internal carbon taxes, Gates writes.

Talk to your family and friends


Gates urges everyone to talk to their friends, family members and colleagues about the importance of climate change mitigation efforts.

But keep in mind that many climate change conversations have become “polarized” and that’s counterproductive, Gates says.

“My hope is that we can shift the conversation by sharing the facts with the people in our lives — our family members, friends, and leaders,” Gates writes. “I also hope we can unite behind plans that bridge political divides.”
Posted by at

21 Bill Gates: Nuclear power will 'absolutely' be politically acceptable

Bill Gates: Nuclear power will 'absolutely' be politically acceptable




Bill Gates: Nuclear power will ‘absolutely’ be politically acceptable again — it’s safer than oil, coal, natural gas
Published Thu, Feb 25 2021

Catherine Clifford@CATCLIFFORD

Bill Gates
Gerard Miller | CNBC



Nuclear energy will “absolutely” be politically palatable, billionaire philanthropist, technologist and climate change evangelist Bill Gates recently told Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Nuclear power has to overcome a baneful reputation garnered by association with the atomic bomb and radioactive disasters, but it’s a necessary, worthy and surmountable challenge to correct the naysayers, according to Gates.


That’s because the need for clean energy is dire, and the operation of nuclear power plants produces no greenhouse gas emissions. According to Gates, new innovations in nuclear technology (in which he is an investor) are making nuclear energy safer and more affordable, and countries around the world are starting to adopt nuclear power.

Nuclear energy is safer than coal, oil, natural gas

Nuclear energy has long had reputation of being dangerous: Early innovations in nuclear power were made in furtherance of the nuclear bomb, and in more recent decades, there have been high-profile disasters like the Chernobyl plant meltdown in 1986 in Ukraine and the the Fukushima Daiichi plant accident in 2011 in Japan.

But while the disasters get a lot of attention, Gates points to the relative safety of nuclear power over time.

“Nuclear has actually been safer than any other source of [power] generation,” Gates told Sorkin. “You know, coal plants, coal particulate, natural gas pipelines blowing up. The deaths per unit of power on these other approaches are — are far higher,” Gates said, a fact he also references in his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”



Death rates from energy production per unit of energy generated.
Courtesy Our World in Data


“There’s a new generation [of nuclear power] that solves the economics, which has been the big, big problem,” he said, referring to the fact that the power plants are very expensive to build. “At the same time, it revolutionizes the safety.”


Innovations include using liquid sodium instead of water to cool the reactor at a lower pressure, which can help avoid meltdowns and also allows nuclear power plants to be smaller and therefore simpler to build.

“As we solve these engineering problems and cost problems, I hope people will be open-minded to see how incredibly safe the next generation will be,” Gates told Sorkin. Gates is an investor in and founder of TerraPower, one of the leading new nuclear power companies.
Global adoption matches changing sentiment


Around the world, the adoption of nuclear energy is starting to change.

“The potential of nuclear energy as a part of a broad, low carbon-generation portfolio is becoming clearer to those governments that want to take action on climate change,” says Jonathan Cobb, senior communication manager for World Nuclear Association, a non-profit of industry stake-holders.

“The United Arab Emirates is looking beyond its fossil fuel history and has just started up the first of four nuclear reactors, which by the middle of this decade will supply 25% of its electricity, and Turkey and Bangladesh are constructing their first nuclear reactors,” Cobb says.

And “other countries, such as Poland and Egypt are intending to build their first nuclear power plants in the future,” he says.

In the United States, where about 20% of total annual U.S. electricity generation comes from nuclear power, a new nuclear power plant is being constructed by Southern Nuclear at the Vogtle plant in Waynesboro, Georgia (which is about 40 minutes south of Augusta). The new reactors, due online in 2021 and 2022, will be some of “the world’s most advanced,” according to the Office of Nuclear Energy of the federal government’s Department of Energy.


US political sentiment about nuclear power has been changing too.

Nuclear energy innovation was part of President Joe Biden’s campaign pledge to address climate change.

And over the past four years bipartisan political support for nuclear has grown, says John Kotek, vice president of policy development and public affairs at the Washington D.C-based Nuclear Energy Institute, and a former head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy during the Obama administration.

“Congress has passed several pro-nuclear bills by overwhelming bipartisan majorities and has increased funding for nuclear energy research by more than 50%” in that time, he says. “And several states – led by both Democratic and Republican governors – have enacted policies to keep existing nuclear plants in operation because they value both the carbon-free electricity and the thousands of good-paying jobs those plants deliver.”

But some say it’s be better to focus on renewables like solar and wind


Of course, there are those who say nuclear power is not the immediate answer.

“This proposed technology is a distraction from existing low-cost, safer, and faster solutions available today,” like wind and solar power, says Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

“Since we need to solve 80% of the climate and pollution problems by 2030, and 100%, ideally, by 2035, a new nuclear reactor that takes an average of 15 years between planning and operation is completely useless in terms of helping the climate problem,” Jacobson says.

The myriad of risks with nuclear power are also not insignificant, he says. There is some risk of weapons proliferation, mining uranium can be dangerous, and there is no good safe long-term storage solution for nuclear waste in the United States, to name a few.


Jacobson also points out that while the operation of nuclear power plants does not emit greenhouse gasses (the federal government calls nuclear energy “a zero-emission clean energy source), there are emissions generated in the production of nuclear power plants and in the decomissioning of reactors.

“By far, the best solution is to deploy existing clean, renewable energy and storage technologies,” Jacobson says.

But according to Gates, fully renewable energy systems faces an as yet unsurmounted challenge: It has so far been impossible to create a battery that can be scaled to store enough energy to power entire electrical grids. (Wind and solar energy need to be stored so there is still power when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not out.)

“I’ve lost more money on battery companies than anyone,” Gates, who also invests in battery storage companies, told Fortune recently. “And I’m still in, like, five different battery companies....”

Kotek points to the opportunity cost of solely focusing on things like wind and solar. The two new nuclear reactors being built in Georgia, for instance, “will produce more carbon-free electricity than is currently generated by the more than 7,000 wind turbines in the state of California” he says, and “will, over a 60-year lifetime, avoid the release of about 600 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.”


Regardless, many of the new nuclear technologies like advanced power plants are currently “energy unicorns,” says Gregory Jaczko, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman and the founder of Wind Future LLC. “They have amazing powers to solve all kinds of environmental problems, they just don’t exist in the real world.”

Until they come to fruition, existing solutions “may not have horns, but you can actually put a saddle on one and cut carbon emissions.”

Going forward, even with new technology and demand for clean energy, nuclear energy still has an uphill public relations battle, though, Gates says. “Nuclear power can be done in a way that none of those failures of the past would recur, because just the physics of how it’s built,” Gates told Anderson Cooper on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” “I admit, convincing people of that will be almost as hard as actually building it. But since it may be necessary to avoid climate change, we shouldn’t give up.”

See also:

Bill Gates: This is what you — yes, you — can do to help prevent a climate change disaster

IBM is one of 20 companies joining The Climate Pledge, Amazon and Jeff Bezos’ carbon commitment

This start-up backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos aims to make nearly unlimited clean energy

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