Welcome to Litsy!

I have to admit that I struggled through some parts of this book, but it‘s an important read. This is a painstaking explanation of the climate change crisis and real solutions on how we can begin to fix it. There are practical steps that need to be taken and radical ideas that might work if the whole world can work together. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What‘s different about this book, is that there are parts where you are actually in the future, living it, looking back on the time of right now. An entirely different world is imagined, a better world. Caring, trusting and action got us there. The last section is how to process the trauma and work together to create new ideas for radical change.

We can do this. But it‘s going to take all of us. And right now.

Coal miners or not the enemy. Your cousin who flies business class isn‘t the enemy. Your neighbor who eats meat is not the enemy. The enemy is the system we‘re all embedded in—the same system that‘s been the engine of extractive, colonial, genocidal exploitation of the only planet we all have.

Climate change is not a war. It is genocide. It is domination. It is extinction. It is the most recent manifestation of how powerful men throughout history have sought to steal from the less powerful and dismiss them as merely inconvenient. Understanding climate change in this way transforms everything.

If we decide that we‘re going to use science for constructive purposes and in harmony with the planet and we start to listen to groups of people who have never lost their relationship to the Earth, then we start to see a more benevolent science, a more holistic science. If indigenous people are seen as working in tandem with scientists, I think that would be a really beautiful thing.

Until we build a world that works for everyone, we‘ll continue to have people whose survival is systematically erased by those in power. That‘s the dystopia for the rich and powerful: a world where the rest of us finally realize the power we had all along to fight for justice-focused society.

An escapist attitude is probably the most dangerous reaction to climate change today. It drives to the heart of how the problem of climate change came into being in the first place: by imagining ourselves as individuals who somehow exist outside the context of an interconnected, living ecosystem on a planet where all of our actions deeply affect one another, we fail to see each other‘s humanity and right to simply exist.

⬆️mic drop🔥💯

A relational society built on trust and consent rather than on domination won‘t just happen on its own; it has to be fostered. All of us should get a stake in what the key issues are in the new society, not just those with the most power, and that requires a dialogue-based world that‘s constantly regenerative and, as a core principle, nurtures all life. Let‘s imagine what this could look like.

For the vast majority of people on Earth, it‘s likely that life and a sustainable economy will be much richer, more pleasurable, and more satisfying than life under capitalism. This is a radical concept for many people.

We know what needs to change is almost everything that makes up society as it is today: the systems of buildings, transportation, and energy that make up our cities and towns, but also our democracy, our justice system, and the way we value one another and ourselves. I have no idea what this will look like, but I know how to find out: it‘s as easy as listening. That‘s how a new politics, a new way of relating to one another, will come into being.

Success on climate change, where it can exist, will look like democracy. To build a sustainable and just world for the next century, everyone will have to participate— especially those who have been excluded from the political process for far too long. An inclusive society is a just society, in which we all listen to one another with genuine care. We owe it to one another, and to all species of life.

How will we transform our global economy to be regenerative rather than extractive?

How will we make enormous headway on all of this as soon as possible—against the most powerful industry in human history and their allies at the highest levels of government?

How will we remake the world‘s food systems? How will we retrofit every home, office, factory in the world? How will we rebuild our cities to make sure they can withstand more extreme weather? How will we reimagine transportation in a world where fossil fuels are being rapidly phased out? How will we reform our democracies to make sure all this is done with justice, equity and respect for everyone, especially historically oppressed peoples?

A dangerous escalation of rhetoric. Amid this political, economic, environmental uncertainty is a rush for power, control. A rise in nationalist, populist, white supremacist ideologies has provoked a dystopic response that some are calling ecofascism— border closures and an escalation of inequality, resulting in a growing sense of desperation. The pro growth establishment, aligned with business and industry, got us into this mess.

One thing is for sure: the Green New Deal‘s vision is the best chance we‘ve ever had to lay the groundwork for an ecological society that puts justice, consent, and equity at the center of a flourishing new stage of human civilization.

We must articulate a shared, hopeful vision of the future.
We must tear down the current system.
We must begin building a new world that works for everyone.

🌹🌏🌹

It can‘t go on like this. Somehow, someway, we have to learn how to care about one another again.

We have reached a point at which all weather, in every season, and in every country on Earth, is directly connected to the changes we‘ve inflicted on our planets‘s atmosphere.