Christiana Figueres: [00:02:15] No, no. I think Paul is ready to go. He's chomping at the bit. So all you. Rebecca Solnit: The goal really is, and this is a goal of anti racism, um, a lot of other human rights struggles, the goal is a democracy of voices. It's not to shut down. The voices that have historically been heard, but to make them one of many voices to let the voices that haven't been heard happen I worry a little bit because you sometimes get a dismissiveness as though feminism is, either has achieved goals and should shut up and go home. I don't like the idea of generational waves. but it, um, it does feel seismic. There are these seismic ruptures. We had one in the late sixties. We had another one in the eighties. Um, we had one, I think me too, is the consequence of the rupture that really came in 2012. It was kind of bearing the fruit of the changing conversation of surfacing the violence, the abuse, the silencing. So that when those actresses came forward, the ground had been laid for people to hear, believe, and understand in a way they hadn't. It's another model of change working slowly and incrementally. Feminism is a human rights movement. It's a democracy movement. And the short example I can give is how did Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein have like Half century long crime sprees of doing horrific things to women. It was about, uh, an autocracy of voices. They were confident that they had more power, more credibility, more control than their victims. I think rape and sexual assault are both enforcements and enactments of that inequality. I can do anything I want to, you have no rights and no voice. Not even the voice to say no, not the voice to testify afterwards. And they literally got away with it in both cases for half a century. And then we got into an era with more democracy of voices. So you can't disconnect the violence against the physical violence from the social violence, the conceptual violence. That's also about, you know, I met a woman from Texas whose mother was one of the first women to sit on juries in Texas. Texas didn't let women sit on juries until the 50s. Which meant if you were a victim, a woman victim, you had to get men to... Christiana Figueres: [00:42:27] Wow. Well, thank you to both of you. Thank you for all the work and the thought and the true, humble prayer that has gone into your into your lives. Thank you for this new project. We will be distributing it high and wide and contributing, if you would like. Really wonderful. Yes. Rebecca's going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you will find you have many allies there. Probably more than than you ever thought who will be happy to to help you populate that. So thank you so much. It's been delightful to have you here and let us continue to be firm in the fact, not the belief, but the fact that it is not too late. In 2015, Christiana Figueres led 192 nations to a successful global climate treaty in Paris. But when she was first asked to take on the job, she blurted out that it was impossible. She took it on anyway, and the night before the treaty was announced, people around me were still saying it was impossible, and preparing for failure. Then it succeeded – not in finishing the job, but in moving it forward.

Sometimes it helps to understand that this very moment is astonishing. Early in this century, we had no adequate alternative to fossil fuel. Wind and solar were relatively expensive and inefficient, and battery technology was still in its infancy. The most unnoticed revolution of our era is an energy revolution: solar and wind costs have plummeted as new, more efficient designs have been invented, and they are now widely considered to be more than adequate to power our future. An energizing case for hope about the climate comes from Rebecca Solnit, called the voice of the resistance by the New York Times, and climate activist Thelma Young Lutunatabua, along with a chorus of voices calling on us to rise to the moment.Not Too Late is the book for anyone who is despondent, defeatist, or unsure about climate change and seeking answers. As the contributors to this volume make clear, the future will be decided by whether we act in the present–and we must act to counter institutional inertia, fossil fuel interests, and political obduracy.These dispatches from the climate movement around the world feature the voices of organizers like Guam-based lawyer and writer Julian Aguon; climate scientists like Dr. Jacquelyn Gill and Dr. Edward Carr; poets like Marshall Islands activist Kathy Jetnil-Kijner; and longtime organizers like The Tyranny of Oil author Antonia Juhasz.Guided by Rebecca Solnit’s typical clear-eyed wisdom and enriched by photographs and quotes, Not Too Late leads readers from discouragement to possibilities, from climate despair to climate hope. Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility by Rebecca Solnit – eBook Details Greg Dalton: I've heard of mansplaining and I've practiced it according to my college age daughter. In 2023, Rebecca co edited an anthology called It's Not Too Late, which is a guidebook for changing the climate narrative from despair to possibility. Thank you. We need that. Oil companies are spending a lot on advertising that features outright lies and the hyping of minor projects or false solutions. These lies seek to prevent what must happen, which is that carbon must stay in the ground, and that everything from food production to transportation must change.Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:07:07] Well, Paul, I mean, a sort of that was a very impressive four minute review of Stuart Kirk concluding discussions about steps on the moon, microelectronics quotes from 20th century economists, ocean acidification and the patriarchy, which was a tour de force, I would say. Cristiana. Is there anything left to add? When we talk about any movement, including the push for climate action, we’re talking about a “zeitgeist, a change in the air,” writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit writes in her essay-turned-book Hope in the Dark, which focuses on the intersection of activism, social change, and hope. It’s this last element, hope, that can become “an electrifying force in the present,” Solnit writes, “a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before it is found or followed.”

Not So Moral Money? - link to the Business Green article Christiana mentions in the episode that deunks Stuart Kirk's presentation. Greg Dalton : I love what Rebecca says about defeatism, that it takes a certain amount of privilege to give up. And that people with privilege like you and me have no moral right to give up on the climate challenge. As citizens of the Earth, we have a responsibility to participate. As citizens massed together, we have the power to affect change, and it is only on that scale that enough change can happen. Individual choices can slowly scale up, or sometimes be catalysts, but we’ve run out of time for the slow. It is not the things we refrain from doing, but those things we do passionately, and together, that will count the most. And personal change is not separate from collective change: in a municipality powered by clean energy, for instance, everyone is a clean-energy consumer. The answer is not all that much. But there are people in the world, making decisions that will impact many future generations, not only future humans but future everything else. Every tree, bug and whale.I think there's a lot of people who care, who would like to hope, but who haven't been offered hope.” says Solnit. “We can't make it like we never burned those trillions of tons of fossil fuel and put all that carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere. But we have tremendous choices in this moment.” I can’t speak globally, For many, despair is actually a privilege. Sonlit says that for most of us, “we secretly know that we can give up and our lives will still be relatively comfortable and safe.” That kind of thinking, however, ignores the millions of others who do not have the luxury of giving up as their homes are flooded or burned, or when their crops fail. Solnit says, “To let other people die first, other people lose first, other species lose first, I don't think it's ethical. And I think the facts say there's a lot worth fighting for now.” A climate protest organised by the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Sunrise Movement and other groups in Washington DC, October 2021. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Our team of independent journalists takes pride in doing in-depth reporting and taking time to get it right. We're able to focus our attention on publishing impactful journalism in the public interest, and publish it for free for all to read, because we have the support of Tyee Builders.

Rebecca Solnit: Yeah, and so what you're really doing is giving up on behalf of people. You're saying, let those kids starve. Let the, let those, let that ice melt. Let those storms destroy the crops of those people in Central America. Let you know we're you, we, we who are relatively comfortable, safe, affluent, and therefore powerful, I think have no moral right to give up and we're giving up, you know, to let other people die first, other people lose first, other species lose first, I don't think it's ethical, and I think the facts say there's a lot worth fighting for now, and fighting for it is a really good way to live. Whether you’re already heavily involved in the climate movement or a complete newcomer, the essays are an energising read that will undoubtedly give you hope – the active type, not the passive kind – for the future. The lasting message we should take away? “Fight like hell, and don’t give up,” Solnit concludes. On Being podcast episode with Tarana Burke speaking about the need for ‘revolutionary grace’ mentioned by Thelma.

Thinking about the future requires imagination, but also precision. Waves of climate lies have washed over the public for decades. The age of climate denial is largely over, succeeded by more subtle distortions of the facts, and by false solutions from those who seek to benefit from stasis. Shaped by the clear-eyed wisdom of editors Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua, and enhanced by illustrations by David Solnit, Not Too Lateis a guide to take us from climate crisis to climate hope. Rebecca Solnit: When people get all, all outraged about that. I'm like, I saw the impact of the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Like, you think a little tomato on a sheet of glass is bad? Let me tell you about lighting the ocean on fire and respiratory diseases, the ruination of Vietnamese refugees, livelihoods in the fishing industry, thousands of pelicans coated in oil, and all the kids with asthma here by the Chevron refinery. All the forms. The fact that fossil fuel, every step of the way is poison, and it's political poison as well. It feels like something we're just beginning to recognize. Because we grew up in the, sort of, the age of fossil fuel, or is regnant and triumphant, and it's been completely normalized, and part of our job is to denormalize it.