On January 15th, activists Max Wilbert and Will Falk launched a protest on pristine land in northwest Nevada (Northern Paiute / Western Shoshone territory), slated for destruction on behalf of “green” industry.

In the final days of the Trump administration, the BLM fast-tracked the approval of a lithium mine in northwest Nevada, at Thacker Pass.

Lithium Americas Corporation, a Canadian-based company, plans to blow up this pass, extract millions of tons of stone, and build an array of infrastructure to process this into lithium, with harsh chemicals like sulfuric acid trucked in from oil refineries. Along the way, they will build vast mountains of toxic tailings, leaching heavy metals and uranium into what groundwater remains after they pump nearly 1.5 billion gallons per year into their industrial machinery.

And they have the gall to call this GREEN!!!

This wild and beautiful place has some of the best remaining old-growth sagebrush habitat and is home to many wild creatures, including the most iconic of Western species, the critically endangered greater sage grouse. This area is part of a wildlife management unit that is home to 5-8% of the total remaining sage grouse on the planet. Crosby’s Buckwheat, a rare desert wildflower, lives in this project area. Several creeks here host threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout, and nearby springs are the only home of King’s River pyrg (a critically endangered snail).

From BRIGHT GREEN LIES co-author Max Wilbert:

We want to resist this project because it is emblematic of the lies that are being sold to us about so-called “green” technology. This company and many others are trying to convince us that if we just switch to electric cars, the destruction of the planet and global warming will be fixed. This could not be further from the truth. So we're here to push back against this specific mining project, as well as the entire narrative of "green" technology, and to try to build and strengthen a movement that has its allegiance to the land, to Mother Earth, and to the other beings with whom we share this planet.

As the author of a new book BRIGHT GREEN LIES that examines the failures of so-called green technology, I know these issues well — and lithium is a distraction that allows us to maintain the illusion that a modern, wasteful, high-energy lifestyle can (or should) be maintained, not a solution. We will not solve the problems caused by destroying and consuming the living planet by further destroying and consuming the living planet.

Donate to fund the grassroots resistance and defend this land.

Support the resistance in other ways -- join the protest or help provide needed supplies.

Learn more about Thacker Pass and the proposed mine's impacts here and here.

Learn more about the new book BRIGHT GREEN LIES.

Industrial civilization is strip-mining Life. Human economies are suffocating our remaining natural living systems. As a result, wildlife and insect populations are plummeting, while humans, pets, and livestock numbers are soaring.[1] But some of the newest threats to the natural world are from unexpected sources: wind turbines, solar panels, energy storage, and other “green technologies.”

UPDATED: This is Part 1 in the ATL's free e-book Climate and Ecological Delusions and Contradictions That Will Rapidly End Humanity, Unless…. 

The story about our collective Delusions and Contradictions picks up speed with a stunning revelation!

It goes like this: With the UN 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, all of the world’s leadership and nations have promised to hold-the-line on warming the planet and to stabilize our climate system at no more than 2° Celsius (3.6◦ Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures.[1] Yet, the way they have chosen to do this is to blast past that 2°C heat limit with hundreds of billions of tons of excess pollution, and then later to magically suck the polluting CO2 that causes a cooked and broken climate—out of the air. If you do not know this (perhaps because the world leaders are hiding behind what might be called the “Tinkerbell-Effect”) then you have not yet heard how the world’s leadership plans to actually implement this magical technology. 

Originally published at The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere.

It’s time to accept that we are not going to dislodge the entrenched interests holding back effective action on looming climate chaos by any means tried so far. Believing that 97% of credible scientists is consensus enough is 103% short for effective response. (Even 200% may not be enough.) Undeniability and incontrovertibility are the only criteria that will work to break through the Hydra-Headed Delusion Dragon clutching all of us.

For growing numbers of Americans, tracking the exploding Trump-Russia scandal has become a necessity, like slowing for a major multi-vehicle pileup. Rachel Maddow delivers bombshell reports almost every weeknight, each plotline adding more gasoline to the conflagration that is consuming our political system. As Senator John McCain has offered: “There’s a lot more shoes to drop from this centipede.”

"Donald Trump and his band of Banana Republicans are turning our country into a banana republic."
– Swami Beyondananda

Is the honeymoon over yet?

Perhaps a better question is, what kind of honeymoon follows a shotgun wedding? For the past two months, I have explored how the failure of neoliberalism helped fuel the perfect storm that put Donald Trump in the White House, and how given the choice between status quo and disruptive change, the body politic chose the latter.

OK, so here we are. Now what?

For those who know we are in a real climate emergency, Donald J. Trump’s presidential victory comes as a devastating shock and blow, as he intends to eviscerate climate protection and ramp up fossil fuel extraction. The world needs to be cutting carbon drastically now, yet the United States is accelerating towards the brick wall of climate chaos. Is there any plausible climate emergency response worth considering in this deepening crisis?

Today we already live in the middle of a genuine climate emergency. Yet is this perceived, understood, or discussed anywhere? Despite the overwhelming case, little is being done to eliminate the fossil fuel Goliath and stabilize our climate.

With government gridlocked and business even adding more sand to the gears, policy responses are ridiculously inadequate. Can Philanthropy be the David to the fossil fuel’s Goliath? Where else can we find the influence and resources that could fulfill a David role and support a coordinated, broad-based people’s campaign? Who else could create the “slingshot heard round-the-world” to down the behemoth? 

We must phase out fossil fuels as quickly as humanly possible for a livable climate.

ExxonMobile Refinery, Torrance, CA. Photo: Michael Light. 

WE MUST PHASE OUT FOSSIL FUELS NOW!

Few people, even in the global warming movement, understand the scope, scale, and urgency with which we must now operate to protect our livable planet. A pervasive pluralistic ignorance keeps people from admitting we are in a crisis. We now need a compelling multi-faceted Mobilization Campaign to inform and activate a critical mass of Americans, so we can: (1) achieve US leadership in an Emergency Climate Mobilization, (2) price carbon-based fuels and eliminate their subsidies, (3) incentivize for renewable energy, and (4) keep fossil fuels in the ground. 

The gravity of our situation is clear and convincing. Our task ahead is clear: we either phase-out fossil fuels now or we end civilization and humanity. Here is the tough reality: we have an emergency and we must mobilize now. All hands on deck!

We must build a large Climate Emergency Coalition to demand an immediate emergency mobilization as an over-riding US priority. The aim is Zero Net Carbon within a decade in the United States, feasible with a WW2 type mobilization.

The Paris Agreement won't save us

It is important to realize that the Paris Climate Agreement itself makes the case for emergency response. The Agreement merely gives the impression that the crisis is being addressed. It is good that the nations agreed on a major target (1.5-2°C)—but the deal allows them to pollute for decades, leaving us on course of 3.5°C warming, threatening humanity and most life. There is no requirement to upgrade commitments before 2030. 

So what gives? The Agreement is counting on miracles and magic to save us. Really. Rather than requiring dramatic reductions starting now, the Agreement assumes that unproven technologies (Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage) will down the road “suck carbon” from the atmosphere. Pollute now, clean up decades later. The idea: grow lots of trees and biomass to absorb carbon (every year, an area 1-3 times the size of India), burn it in special power plants that capture the carbon emissions, compress the CO2 and pipe it long distances to then bury it. Kevin Anderson describes the absurdity of these proposals.

Bottom line: Paris’s target can only be possibly met with an immediate carbon phase-out, with reality-based carbon drawdown methods of regenerative land practices, while understanding current drawdown limitations.  

Carbon dioxide stays in our atmosphere for centuries, so it is a cumulative problem.

Chart: Scripps Institution of Oceanography

THE EMERGENCY CASE:

• First, warming from CO2 emissions is irreversible on any human timescale—it takes centuries for CO2 to be re-absorbed back into the earth.  So CO2 is a cumulative problem. Each decade we keep emitting carbon at this rate adds another 0.25°C / 0.5°F, increasing our risk of runaway heating. 

• We are already committed to further inevitable warming even if we quit all fossil fuels today. Two reasons:  (1) Particulate pollution (another pollutant from fossil fuels) actually masks some warming—so when we DO eventually quit fossil fuels, an estimated 0.5°C more warming is coming. (2) Further warming will come from the oceans, called “thermal inertia,” when they finally give their absorbed heat to the atmosphere, adding an estimated 0.6°C. Added to the 1°C existing warming, we are already past Paris’s target.

• Warming is already dangerous at 1°C increase above preindustrial levels, as described in David Spratt's report “Recount: It’s Time to do the Math Again.” 

• 
  

  The 2016 off-the-charts temperature spike even alarms climate scientists. Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research responded: "We are in a kind of climate emergency now."

  Chart: Stephan Rahmstorf

  Warming is in overdrive. Like a broken record, global heat records are being repeatedly shattered, month after month, year after year. January 2016, then February were the hottest months ever. 2015 was the hottest year, as was 2014. 2016 is on track beat 2015. The current El Nino weather pattern only partially explains this temperature surge. 

• Sea level rise will swamp coastal cities.  New research on sea level rise portends complete catastrophe if we do not slash fossil fuels now. James Hansen has warned that without “emergency cooperation among nations,” Greenland and Antarctica could melt ten times faster than formerly known, “resulting in sea level rise of at least 10 feet in as little as 50 years.” Irreversible ice-melt thresholds are being crossed now. It looks likely that we face 3-6 feet of sea-level rise this century, so we will have to move inland. This interactive map, shows the effects on Miami, from 1-10 feet.

• Oceanic threats await marine life. If we continue to dump CO2 into the atmosphere, the oceans will collapse. Recent research clearly shows that even if we could magically pull CO2 out of thin air in the future, it would still acidify our oceans, poisoning marine life (explained here and here). Ocean warming is causing two major threats to marine ecosystems: (1) coral bleaching (a major bleaching event is going on now), and (2) deoxygenation. Only dramatic emission reductions starting now will save the oceans. No ocean life, no us—it’s that simple.

• Methane “natural gas” use is a catastrophic bridge to climate tipping points. Its greenhouse gas impact is far stronger than previously realized: over 100-times more potent than CO2 when first released. In our climate emergency, what happens in the next decade that matters most. New research shows massive methane leakage across the US in recent years (coinciding with the fracking boom). So this methane increase matters a lot. All fossil fuels must be kept in the ground, methane included.

• Clouds provide far less cooling than assumed. New research shows that clouds contain more water and less ice than previously thought. Watery clouds reflect less solar light than icy clouds, heating the planet more. This discovery suggests that temperatures will rise faster from greenhouse gas pollution than previously forecast.

• Large impacts pose high risk. Michael E. Mann’s “'Fat Tail' of Climate Change Risk" article makes it obvious that the risk of runaway greenhouse warming is so high that any able person would be motivated to help with an Emergency Climate Mobilization.

The over-determined conclusion one would have to draw from these best-expert sources would be that YES!, we must dedicate ourselves to completely phase out fossil fuels in the US within ten years, and realize that the route toward such a radical transformation of our culture is an Emergency Climate Mobilization.

For a more in-depth examination of the emergency case, see David Spratt’s “Climate Reality Check” report.

 

No Carbon Budget Left

The stated function of carbon budgets are to provide an amount of "burnable" carbon, while maintaining a likelihood of staying under the 2°C heat ceiling.

Yet the carbon budget concept is a dangerous illusion:

• Major impacts are becoming apparent at just 1°C warming.
• There is an unacceptable risk that feedbacks will be triggered before 2°C. 
• Budgets assume unacceptably high risks of failure. 

For more details: No Remaining Carbon Budget: Zero Carbon In a Decade Is a Must!

Image: Jos Hagelaars, adapted by Breakthrough - David Spratt / further adapted by Climate Emergency Coalition

ESSENTIAL ACTIONS

For climate stabilization well under 2°C, we must start now to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by about 10 percent each year, until fossil fuel phase-out is complete in a decade, and globally in fifteen years, quickly transitioning from fossil fuels to low carbon energy.

The time for energy democracy has come: wherever possible communities should collectively control the conversion to clean energy.

Photo: Black Rock Solar / Rainshadow Charter School.

To achieve this, several essential actions are now needed: 

• Price carbon pollution and remove fossil fuel subsidies. To drive broad-based emissions reductions, we must account for the true societal costs of fossil fuels.
• Keep fossil fuels in the ground. Oppose their exploration, development, new infrastructure, and export through collective action. There is no remaining carbon budget.
• Incentivize renewable energy. Create policies that support their development, production, and roll-out as quickly as possible.
• Assist developing nations with clean energy so that they “leap-frog” fossil fuel development. 
• Reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere. Invest globally in reforestation, biochar, land/soil restoration, and agroecology.
• The US must lead. The US must embrace the 1.5-2°C limit, and lead the global low carbon mobilization. Fossil fuel reductions must begin now in industrialized nations,[1] and within a few years in developing nations.[2]

Enacting effective policies to facilitate this transition within a decade will, in effect, catalyze a wartime-speed mobilization effort. The first step is to get the emergency situation into the cultural conversation, so the emergency is perceived, declared, and acted upon with an Emergency Climate Mobilization. This is aim of the Climate Emergency Coalition.

RESPONDING IN EMERGENCY MODE

Importantly, humans can and do rise above fear and respond. The climate movement has mistakenly believed that people would panic, become paralyzed, or fall into resignation if they understood the looming climate threat. The widespread notion that people panic in emergencies is not corroborated by evidence, research, or human behavior. 

Research shows that we behave cooperatively and rapidly—even with extraordinary teamwork and collaboration—when trained or given accurate information about disasters and constructive response options. Emergency mode is characterized by an extreme focus of attention and resources on working productively to respond to the emergency.

So awakening citizens to the danger and providing responses that deal with the scope, scale and urgency of the crisis is necessary. If that is done effectively, we can expect constructive cooperation and mobilization to avert climate catastrophe.

Knowing what to do and preparing facilitates “eustress” (a positive form of stress) in emergencies. The seemingly impossible can be accomplished in extreme situations when emotion, purpose, and enthusiasm are combined.

Some emergencies last years, and we are in such a “long emergency” now. Examples have included: wars, the Great Depression, nations under occupation, and collapsing empires. In long emergencies, a combination of purpose, pacing, and persistence is needed. Human societies have often exhibited heroic persistence in very long emergencies, even when situations were very dire.

Humans evolved in tribes, and group success was vital to the survival of each individual. Very importantly, it’s within our nature to work together in groups.

MOBILIZING FOR RAPID TRANSITION

The type of emergency response needed in our situation is called mobilization. We refer to it as an Emergency Climate Mobilization.

What is mobilization?  Mobilization is a coming together as a people with a common cause—a rapid emergency restructuring of a modern industrial economy. It involves all citizens and impacts all areas of society. It’s nothing less than a comprehensive social and industrial metamorphosis. 

Mobilization summons a sense of collective destiny and moral purpose. Importantly, it is not an indiscriminate use of government power. Rather, it is a specific economic approach that directs the collective force of industry away from petro-consumerism towards a complete fossil fuel phase-out and transformation to a zero carbon society. 

We are calling for a society-wide Emergency Climate Mobilization aiming to achieve zero carbon emissions in the US within a decade and globally in fifteen years. We see this as the fastest possible phase-out of fossil fuels in a “long emergency” mobilization mode, in which we can achieve far more than what is now commonly thought as possible.