PPM is Parts Per Million, refering to the level of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere
Did anyone happen to scroll past a news item this week about the latest PPM? If you only get news from the television networks you’ve likely not seen it yet even though this may be the most important development of the week, month, and year. What is a PPM you might be wondering? It’s an acronym that signifies a number that has huge implications for our life, and everyone else on the planet.
In the context of climate change Parts Per Million refers to the level of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere at any given time. It’s a changing snapshot of how much atmospheric peril we humans have put ourselves in, largely unknowingly. At last reading on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory–the accepted benchmark for measuring the amount of carbon pollution, or heat-trapping gasses—we hit a record high of 421 ppm.
That number is only significant if one understands the context so here it is: when records of this indicator were first reported, in the late 1950s, there were about 315 ppm’s in the atmosphere. 350 parts per million is the level considered “safe” by climate scientists and we are now well behind that “not to exceed” marker (thus the name for 350.org, a climate activist group started by Bill McKibben).
So, what does this mean for humanity? Are we doomed? Condemned to endure ever harsher and more deadly extreme weather events? Well yes, but only IF we continue with business-as-usual practices when it comes to burning energy needed to fuel nearly 8-billion human lives.
The scary part? The feedback loop and cascading effects of a warming earth.
While there are more efforts underway than ever to reduce our carbon emissions through waste reduction, inventing and utilizing new technology to reduce emissions, and a fevered race to come up with viable ways to suck carbon out of the atmosphere, the sobering reality is this: unless and until society, in the U.S. and around the world, makes this a higher priority – the highest priority – we will not meet the critical 2030 goal of reducing our carbon emissions by 50%. That failure will likely lock in two degrees of further warming which experts say would be catastrophic.
The really scary part comes from the feedback loop and cascading effects of a warming earth. Just like when people get a fever, the planet also has a tipping point that when surpassed, can threaten survival. While some of these outcomes are predictable; like melting glaciers allowing the sun to warm the water that was previously protected by sea ice, much is unknown. We are truly in uncharted territory.
Whether enough people know it or not, humanity is in a race to survive and any hopes for our offspring to thrive will be determined in the next few years and decades. If that doesn’t stop the presses news, I don’t know what is. And yet if I turn on CNN, MSNBC/NBC, CBS, ABC, I doubt they’ll be discussing the climate crisis.
The news networks have shown themselves to be laggards, not leaders when it comes to covering pressing environmental news. As followers (of each other) we’ve seen the “legacy channels” engage in long cycles of politics as the primary focus and beginning in 2020, the pandemic.
So, what will it take for the planet—our life support system– to get prime-time coverage? Maybe a record high level of ppms in our atmosphere. Or maybe not. But until and unless Mother Nature–our life support system—gets the focused and sustained attention of mainstream news media and the public, we can assume the changes urgently needed will not meet this epic challenge.
If there was a memo that went out saying we are giving up on the fight for a sustainable future – near and far-term – I missed it. And you likely did too so what are we waiting for? Let’s get started while there’s time.
It is now painfully clear just how much virulent lies from right-wing media have fueled election fraud conspiracies and deadly domestic terrorism. By perpetuating and amplifying outlandish fantasies, millions of Americans are in a hyped up state about something that did not occur. But Fox and other conservative news and talk outlets have also contributed to, if not caused, even more harm on another front over a full blown actual crisis they willfully ignore.
I’m referring to their well-fueled disinformation campaign on climate and other life and death environmental issues. This effort has been going on for at least two decades with the science denying narrative fueled by polluters and too many Republicans to protect their assets, and positions of power, respectively. Planet, people, and the forever future be damned.
There is no indication that the right wing climate clowns are coming to their senses or even a little bit nervous about pushback, be it through legal action or pressure on advertisers. Wasting no time, several Fox shows resumed their falsehoods and unhinged attempts to sabotage all efforts to reverse or slow climate collapse on Inauguration Day and in the days following. Call it the “Foxic Effect” because the fear mongering lies about job losses and economic ruin help fortify resistance to cleaning up the environment, aka our home.
Actual news about damage accruing to our climate, weather, oceans, coral reefs, rain forests, glaciers, wildlife, food, water and human health — hastened by the departed Trump administration’s rollbacks — is routinely ignored by right-wing media channels and has been enabled by public indifference and inattention to these urgent threats.
Much of the human-caused degradation to nature is NOT reversible, rendering the Big Climate Lie even more destructive than even fomenting election fraud and partisan violence. It’s also more deadly than downplaying the science and severe threats from COVID19 — in the long term if not near future. So why don’t we hear much, if anything, about these flagrant lies? Where is the outrage, uproar and accountability on that front?
Many Americans are only newly aware of just how reckless Fox news and opinion hosts — as well as other conservative talkers — have been in peddling dangerous lies with intentional ignorance, arrogance, and impunity. That lack of awareness is understandable since well-informed citizens don’t watch Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, or listen to Rush Limbaugh.
I have both witnessed first hand and experienced being the target of Hannity’s climate lies. For each of the more than dozen times I was a guest on his TV and radio shows the sparring segments alone revealed gross distortions of the truth, with low credibility delivered at high volume (see photo above). It was appalling, galling, toxic, and ought to be be criminal given the serious consequences. We have more climate deniers than any other country and science illiterate citizens vote for non- science savvy candidates. What could possibly go wrong?
In addition to loudly and frequently denying threats of climate and ecosystem collapse — while mocking the scientists and activists trying to address these epic challenges— right wing enablers on cable networks and talk radio have been rewarded for perpetuating these untruths with inexplicably high ratings and obscenely high salaries. The top Fox personalities make tens of millions of dollars each year with Hannity taking home (to his many mansions) a reported $45 million a year — to lie! And that doesn’t include speaking and promotional gigs.
How is that acceptable and why is it tolerated as our planet withers and writhes and our children’s future safety hangs in the balance?
This absurd and astonishing situation has been a focus of mine for two decades but as more people wake up to the dangers of fake news — the REAL fake news — we’re still not hearing much, if anything, about how these bloviating buffoons are major contributors to climate denial and inaction in our country. Each time I was on Hannity’s show he had paid shills for the fossil fuel industry on against me, always spewing outrageous nonsense. I actually got harassed online for daring to state that “humans are part of nature.” For them it’s a game to knock liberals, mock environmental activists and deny scientific facts. Even if we didn’t have these dark forces actively thwarting progress, the task ahead is nothing short of monumental. How dare they and where is the accountability?
If more Americans knew the truth about how quickly the window to act on climate collapse is closing — and what will happen if we don’t start dramatically curbing our emissions — we likely would not have had Donald Trump, and his corrupt cast of cronies, in the White House.
Elections have consequences and it could well take years to repair the damage, both to the climate and our country’s reputation, by pulling out of the Paris Accord. At least we have a new science-savvy Presidential team wasting no time in reversing the idiocy, returning us to the global agreement, and shutting down the controversial Keystone pipeline project. In their first week Biden/Harris did more than any previous administration to address the crisis. They’re only getting started but it will take a sustained effort to undo Trump’s rollbacks on fuel efficiency, factory emissions, and methane release from fracking and other dirty processes. It should be clear why we cannot afford any more climate clueless politicians or overpaid deny-o-saurs on national airwaves.
To those who would argue that the pandemic and threats to our democracy pose a bigger threat to our citizens and country consider this: extreme weather inflicted $95 billion worth of damage in the United States in 2020 alone and more Americans have died from emissions infused weather disasters, air and water pollution, toxins and other environmental health threats over the years — and will — than from COVID.
While our fragile democracy faces its biggest challenge in our country’s short history, it WILL survive, likely growing stronger after recent events have served as a giant wake-up call. But our fragile atmospheric and interconnected ecosystems — that make up the web of ALL life — are not so resilient when pushed to the breaking point, which science shows we are rapidly approaching.
When birds are falling from the sky, perishing in record numbers, and bees and other insects disappearing for equally mysterious and disturbing reasons, it should be a Rachel Carson moment each and every day. But if you’re a regular Fox watcher there’s no need for concern. It’s all a big hoax. Better to fear fake threats like socialism, police de-funding, an end to law and order. If the irony and hypocrisy of those manufactured “crises” aren’t apparent then you haven’t been paying attention to the news. And loosening pollution standards in the midst of a respiratory pandemic is so ironic as to be moronic.
Where is the accountability for what should be crimes against humanity leveled at highly irresponsible mega, or MAGA, media outlets posing as news organizations? They’ve clearly duped, if not brainwashed, millions of Americans and whipped up a frenzy over non-existent threats — while downplaying and denying the very real prospect of a punishing planet.
Even as some “conservative” hosts dialed back their rhetoric — a bit — on COVID, mask-wearing, and voter fraud — thanks to lawsuits — they are still getting away with murder, lying about real-world risks to our planet’s health and humanity’s future. Where are the lawsuits, harsh warnings and op-eds on that angle?
Having presented that question to lawyers, media watchdog groups, and public interest non-profits, the First Amendment keeps coming up as an obstacle to forcing the deadly lies to stop.
But you can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre — IF we ever crowd into theatres and other large public venues again — so the First Amendment does have some exceptions. Then why is it okay to allow overpaid cons on right-wing channels to yell the equivalent in reverse: to repeat on television and radio (where the large majority of talk radio is conservative or extreme right-wing) that the planet is NOT on fire? Or that there is NO climate emergency?
It’s a helluva price to pay, but if radicalization of the right — fueled by media (both traditional and social) echo chambers — leads to a cleansing of platforms and personalities that specialize in dirty lies, it will be one of the few silver linings in this devastatingly dark period.
If 2020 was the year of clarity and consequences — to better see what’s NOT working and exposing what was mostly out of view — may 2021 be a year of course correction. Until media perpetrators who are the opposite of patriots are called out and shown the exit door, there can be no healing of people, our political divide, or the planet; our life support system.
If Trump has blood on his hands — not only from rampaging mobs but from other hate crimes that have led to deaths on his watch — he also has carbon fueled carnage on his hands. And so does the Murdoch family. While we’re all washing our hands of the virus, let’s also make now the time to clean up our media landscape and rid it of virulent untruths and propaganda. With the clock ticking on emissions reduction deadlines, there isn’t a day to waste.
And while we’re at it…removing the liars from broadcast and cable airwaves addresses only half the problem. Mainstream news channels need to start covering climate and environmental developments more regularly as if they constitute an emergency, equal if not surpassing threats to our public health and democracy. These are no longer slow moving or distant challenges and ecological damage is enduring, much of it not likely to be reversible, and global in nature.
Mainstream news channels, especially the widely viewed networks, must also begin offering content on solutions even if it means interrupting their regularly scheduled (political) programming, just like they do for COVID and other news du jour. What better use of mass media outlets right now? How are we ever going to get off our gasses if we’re not having a national conversation about how to do it? We’re late getting on this, it’s complicated, and we need more than an occasional 2 minute story, or segment, on breaking climate news.
Just look at what near-constant coverage and dot-connecting did to expose and educate Americans about the pandemic, and impact behavior nearly overnight. Why treat our existential earth emergency any differently? Our home IS on fire and the sky really IS falling. Does anyone out there know how to reassemble intricate and interconnected ecosystems? So why are we destroying them so nonchalantly and piling on the damage while we’re busy distracting ourselves? As President Obama said: “there IS such a thing as too late.” What will you say when your kids ask “what did you do during the narrow window to act?”
If mainstream channels fail to meet their societal obligation to inform the public about needed action to reverse the “climate virus” to keep it from worsening, that is equivalent to withholding a life-saving vaccine. The solutions are out there and everyone should know about them, if nothing else to offer Americans hope and motivation. Just as personal choices like mask wearing and social distancing impact public health; what we drive, how we build, what we eat, and who we vote for, matters for the collective good.
And it’s all connected. You may not hear about it on the news but world reknown virologists insist that if humans don’t start living in better balance with nature, and better protect wildlife habitats, we will certainly have more frequent, and deadly pandemics, perhaps worse than COVID.
There can be no public health, nor thriving democracy, on a dead planet.
Among the many outrageous lines and lies that came out of the most unconventional Republican National Convention (R.N.C. for Really No Clue?) the most egregious is what was not said.
Over four nights of speeches, while several un-natural disasters were wreaking havoc in Louisiana, Texas, and California — not a word was mentioned about what is making these weather events more hellacious.
Aside from the obligatory “thoughts and prayers go out to hurricane victims” — with zero mention of the devastating California fires (Blue state bias?) — the only time the words “climate change” were uttered was when VP Mike Pence denounced climate regulations that Joe Biden would purportedly impose if elected.
The next night, in his acceptance speech, President Trump boasted about pulling out of “the very costly and unfair Paris Climate Accord,” a global agreement that scientific experts say didn’t go far enough in keeping warming below two degrees.That, as hundreds of thousands of Americans, were fleeing for their lives in triple-digit heat amidst a deadly pandemic with ecological origins, just weeks after Iowans were hit with an unprecedented “land hurricane,” or derecho.
In addition to U.S. refusal to participate in the Paris agreement under Trump — setting back critically needed progress and America’s role as a leader — even after the last several years of near-constant climate catastrophes on his watch, there’s been no change in the administration’s industry-friendly position. Instead, the Trump administration has knowingly made things worse with ongoing environmental rollbacks to loosen fuel economy standards, open up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, weaken restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, air, and water pollution, all with negative impacts to human health and safety, today, and in the future.
Hell Bent on Destruction
As the planet convulses, species struggle to survive, oceans warm, and rain forests burn, Republican leadership is hastening the dismantling of our fragile eco-sphere. From the start, Trump and company have been determined to destroy President Obama’s environmental legacy, appointing industry lobbyists to head agencies tasked with protecting public and planetary health, all the while giving a middle finger to science — and citizens. And they have the gall to continue their anti-environment agenda even in the wake of increasingly dire climate warnings. It’s a bad nightmare being made worse and now they’ve gone on record as not even pretending to care about the biggest crisis of our time, let alone its millions of victims!
For the hundreds of thousands of Americans impacted by just the most recent carbon-fueled disasters, it would surely have been surreal to watch the Republicans’ rosy view of life under Trump. His regressive administration is not only downplaying the scope of these mega catastrophes — in addition to ignoring what’s causing weather events on steroids — but also diminishing the staggering human toll of the COVID pandemic which has underlying ecological drivers.
Can you imagine the stress levels of being left with a damaged home without power, water, and A.C. in the midst of a heatwave AND worried about contracting coronavirus? Officials in the hard-hit Lake Charles area and more than a dozen Louisiana parishes say electricity will be out for a month or more — how can residents remove and repair damage without power? To add insult to injury a chemical plant caught fire in the storm, releasing toxins into the hot and muggy air.
So perhaps it’s just as well that thousands have been without television or in evacuation centers where they couldn’t watch the R.N.C. Otherwise, they surely would have felt invisible during the out of touch and tone-deaf convention. But while it may sound harsh, Republican sanctioned climate negligence goes far beyond tone deafness; instead, it reflects a deaf, dumb and blind approach, given the indisputable scientific and evidentiary facts.
One has to wonder how many of the latest climate refugees even realize that this man-made crisis is fueling more fire-nados, “horror-canes,” floods, and derechos. One hurricane victim wearing a MAGA hat was interviewed on TV, seemingly clueless about the link to climate change which his candidate is deliberately making worse.
The fact that there continues to be a shocking disconnect between carbon emissions and global warming in 2020 is largely a result of the fossil fuel industry continuing to fund denial. And too much of the corporate-owned news media has been complicit in doing too little too late by failing to connect the common denominator climate dots, as well as refusing game-changing content on eco-solutions.
As someone who left an on-air job with CBS News over a decade ago to cover the environmental beat full time, I’ve watched, aghast, as this double-headed monster (The Denial Industrial complex — or D.I.C. — combined with years of broadcast and cable news outlets providing scant coverage of our worsening ecological crises) has slowed progress. After kicking the carbon can down the road too long, we simply cannot afford any more delays.
Deja Vu All Over Again
Fifteen years ago, when Hurricane Katrina — followed by Rita — hit the Gulf Coast, I recall being on-air and declaring the arrival of climate change on U.S. shores.Although that reality has been plain to see for anyone looking, the continuing campaign to downplay and diminish this existential threat has been a smashing success. As in smashing structures, solutions, lives, livelihoods and even hope that we’ll be able to turn the tide in time.
As Laura was growing into a Category 4 hurricane last week — at a frighteningly rapid rate — I was getting deja vu. History is still repeating itself with lessons seemingly unlearned. With the federal government’s now routine declarations of emergency after the fact, we are not doing nearly enough as a nation on the prevention, mitigation, or adaptation fronts.
That’s tragic, inexcusable, and at this late stage, I’d add criminal. These are not random acts of God. Rather, these weather events on steroids are part of a pattern of man-made disasters, resulting from the continued and subsidized burning of fossil fuels. As long as we elect fossil fools to lead us, we will be sealing our fate. And every day counts. Want more of this? Vote Republican!
When President Trump stopped to survey the damage in Louisiana and Texas over the weekend, there was, of course, no mention of climate change. While more than 15 victims lost their lives and thousands of residents were left without homes, water, and electricity in 100+ degree heat, Trump spent his time joking with local officials and praising FEMA’s “tremendous response.”
The astonishing disconnect would be comical if it weren’t so tragic. Americans have been misinformed — actually disinformed intentionally — by the administration and long amplified by the under-educated, but highly overpaid, “deny-o-saurs” on Fox “News.” Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh are lying and literally getting away with murder and theft of our future, while laughing all the way to the bank! They’ve done it again by downplaying the seriousness of COVID from the same playbook.
There has also been little connection made in mainstream media about the underlying environmental causes of the coronavirus pandemic. One of the world’s top virologists, Dr. Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, has been quoted as saying “as long as we are making the planet sicker, people are going to get sicker.”
He and other experts have identified habitat destruction and climate change as contributing factors to the spread of virus’ — from wildlife to humans — as development increasingly encroaches into nature, including forests where virus-carrying animals like bats are getting squeezed out of treetops and into populated areas. Dr. Daszak says a vaccine won’t stop this nightmare because there are more than one-and-a-half million virus’ present in wildlife populations! Until we start taking better care of nature, he says, humans will continue to see ever more deadly viral pandemics, vaccines or not.
Time to Wake Up and Smell the Carbon
Our nation’s low rate of eco-literacy allows for misinformation and ignorance to prevail. It’s no coincidence that the U.S. is the only developed country not in the Paris Climate Accord AND has had the worst response to COVID. The dumbing down of America — aided and abetted by special interests — is no coincidence. It should now be painfully clear that the tremendous cost of continued attacks on science — perpetuated primarily by Republican conservatives and right wing media personalities— are making it nearly impossible to make progress.
The stark reality is that even without the well-funded deny-o-sphere, humanity faces an uphill battle and epic challenge. Add in forces deliberately thwarting action and reversing progress — as the current administration is doing — and you have failure. And failing to preserve a habitable planet does not bode well for ANYthing or ANYone in the future. Want more pandemics? Vote Republican!
While there is a growing faction of young Republicans concerned about the climate crisis, the party leadership has yet to embrace their views. Some fear the continued ostrich approach adopted by the party symbolized by an elephant, will prove to be the “giant elephant in the room” that makes Republican candidates appear to be out of touch with reality,.
If ever there was a time for all politicians, the news media, and greater public to “wake up and smell the carbon” it is right now so we can begin to work together to “get off our gasses.” Most immediately this warning must get out between now and the election.
As evidenced at the R.N.C., the Republican party is choosing to remain clueless, actively and selectively so. If that’s the type of leadership anyone thinks we can afford in this era of ecosystem collapse with so many clear signs of earth out of balance — from destructive weather to viral pandemics — they should be prepared for more of the same, increasingly making Earth an extremely dangerous place, not conducive to human life.
If nothing else, the COVID crisis should teach us three important lessons:
1) We live on a small interconnected planet where nature is in charge.
2) Humans can change their behavior if properly informed and motivated
3) Individual actions have a collective impact, positive or negative.
Perhaps most importantly, we have seen the terrible price paid by ignoring scientific warnings and not being prepared for oncoming crises. And also how quickly and dramatically our lives can go south, from normal to not recognizable, seemingly overnight.
The ultimate takeaway is a reminder of the universal truth that we “don’t know what we got till it’s gone.”
We have only two noisy and newsy months to go until the most consequential election of our time when we will get the opportunity to have a say in our future by voting. Before it’s too late to go back, let’s think long and hard about what four more years of head-in-the-sand politics will do to the planet, our only home. Some things are not reversible, including ecocide.
I urge you not to be distracted by all the Red rhetoric on display at the R.N.C. and Trump’s mean and manic tweets. More than ever before, there is a black and white difference between the two parties, a life and death difference for our kids, country, and planet.
There is only one policy color that matters right now, and that’s the color Green. Only Joe Biden’s Blue party, the Democrats, have a plan to tackle climate change, build back better with a green recovery — addressing both the ecological and economic crises — and create jobs that put us on a sustainable path.
Only one party understands that without racial justice and income equality, none of the fixes needed will work. We are all connected, it is all connected, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris know how to connect all these dots to move our country, and world, forward.
