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This post is based on two simple premises: (1) what’s bad for Mr. Trump and MAGA is good for climate action, and; (2) we must never let our climate victories be turned to ash ever again; to do so we must become the greatest political force for good in our lifetimes.

What’s Bad for Trump/MAGA …

So what’s bad for MAGA today? Trump.

Mr. Trump’s disastrous and criminal war against Iran, its economic ramifications, including a 40% jump in gas prices at the pump that are projected to end up costing families $1,000 this year, and his ever more desperate genocidal threats in relation to it, are all leading to growing discontent and criticism within the MAGA movement that, at least on Truth Social, is even stronger than that in relation to the Epstein Files.

An Axios analysis published Wednesday suggested that MAGA’s “most powerful voices are working to keep Trump in check if not bring him down outright, accusing him of betraying the ‘America First’ promises that built the movement.”

For example:

Tucker Carlson delivered a 43-minute monologue Monday [April 6] framing Trump’s Iran rhetoric as morally corrupt and even “evil.” He expressed personal outrage at Trump’s Easter post threatening to bring “hell” to Iran, and urged U.S. officials to defy any orders that could kill civilians.

Clearly such criticisms have landed, because on Thursday Mr. Trump lashed out in a long Truth Social post:

But it’s not just well-known voices that have become negative. A NYTimes analysis of Truth Social posts by Mr. Trump’s true believers have found many who are now disillusioned.

More than half responding to Trump’s threat to wipe out Iran’s whole civilization — which he reiterated he was willing to do — were critical.

To top things off, just last night Mr. Trump posted a picture of him as a Jesus-like figure healing the sick that has outraged prominent MAGA Christians, as well as a post and comments highly critical of Pope Leo, potentially alienating some of his Catholic supporters.

More broadly, recent polling shows that Mr. Trump is the best at being the worst in terms of approval rating at this point in a presidency — 35%, the lowest ever. He even beats Biden.

And the thing that got him elected, perceptions concerning his handling of the economy? His approval here is now at the lowest it’s ever been for him: 31%. Among Republicans, he’s seen a 14 point drop since January, from 85% to 71%.

So, to sum up the Trump presidency thus far: Crazy vindictive tariffs driving up prices and inflation, thug-like behavior from poorly and quickly trained ICE/Border Patrol “agents,” innocent protesters shot dead with no consequences, the Epstein Files cover-up, an unpopular “Big Beautiful Bill” for the wealthy with our kids stuck with the check, rank corruption that stinks to high heaven, attacking Pope Leo and portraying himself like Jesus, treating allies with utter contempt, and the criminal Iran War causing gas prices to go through the roof and making inflation even worse than Trump already has. No wonder then that, as one polling analyst concluded:

… Is Good for The Climate Movement

Anything that weakens Trump/MAGA is good for us, the US, and the world.

Why’s that? Hmmm. Let me see. Well, Mr. Trump’s clean energy policies are totally irrational based on his narcissistic whims. For example, wind energy is bad because of a confrontation years ago concerning one of his golf courses in Scotland.

His stupid, immoral attacks on climate action are literally insane, i.e., not based on reality but on his inflated sense of his own opinions, confusing them with scientific facts — indeed, not understanding the difference between facts and his opinion. For Mr. Trump, climate is a hoax because he says so: he’s the fact-meister.

These characteristics, infused throughout Trump-2, have led some to suggest “The world faces something new and baffling and frightening in Mr. Trump’s second term: a psychotic state.”

As Aaron Rupar, a journalist who has watched Trump more than anyone, put it:

“It’s really difficult to cover him in a way that conveys how unhinged he is. That’s kind of how people are trained to do political journalism. It’s like, ‘OK, what did he say that was newsworthy, what’s new?’ So you kind of pick up those things and convey them to your audience. But in reality, when you actually watch his rallies, you see that they’re full of hatred, he’s lying constantly, and a lot of it is incoherent (emphasis added).”

Already back in February, 30% of Republicans thought Trump was acting “erratically.” Since then things have gotten worse. His mental state is now a legitimate question “among retired generals, diplomats and foreign officials. And most strikingly, it can be heard now on the political right among onetime allies of the president.”

Catching a ride on the Trump/MAGA crazy train are the fossil companies and the anti-climate ideologues. They are having their last hurrah with Mr. Trump and his Administration, a sympathetic Republican Congress, and the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court.

As with all last hurrahs, it won’t last. But untold damage has been done to climate science, clean energy development — in short, anything related to climate action. And, sadly, there’s more to come.

When their bloated, greasy, greedy, pollution-party is over, these agents of destruction want to walk away and leave the mess for the rest of us.

Well, the fossils don’t get off the hook for their accountability for climate consequences or their responsibility to actually help. Like us and every human being on the planet and every one that has ever lived or ever will live, they are called to do the three actions of justice: stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better. Obviously when it comes to justice they’ve got a lot of work to do, and it will be the responsibility of some of us to hold them accountable for past actions. More than that, we hope such opponents will change course and act on their responsibility for helping the rest of us achieve our vision.

Besides the fossils and anti-climate ideologies, we’ve watched as many institutions and businesses have buckled to the pressure by going quiet, or have cut back or dropped climate and clean energy-related initiatives and programs they may have been pushed to do in the first place.

We Must Become The Greatest Political Force For Good in Our Lifetimes

The Biden-era climate action momentum in the US, initially spurred by The Climate Movement, scored significant victories.

But then we’ve had the great climate action reversal with the Trump-2/MAGA climate meltdown and the retreat by fair-weather “friends.”

Both of these together must make one thing crystal clear to The Climate Movement. Our two synergistic forms of power — moral power and people power — are nowhere near what they need to be, and nowhere as stable as they must be to ensure this awful scenario — where many of our victories are turned to ash — is never repeated. We must have staying power that does not wain but gets stronger. We must have the strength to not only protect our accomplishments, but continue to score and achieve even greater victories on our Olympian Fields of Action.

More broadly, our moral and people power must help ensure we never allow someone like Trump and MAGA to hold political power ever again. In the US, our power must simultaneously overcome climate change and keep democracy and the world safe by electing leaders of character who will do both. Climate champions with political power must also be people of character who are seeking the common good — putting the people over the powerful, creating wellbeing for everyone and everything.

In short, The Climate Movement must become the greatest political force for good in our lifetimes. To paraphrase the prophet Isaiah: We must walk and not faint; we must run and not grow weary; we must mount up on wings like Eagles. Join us!

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This post is the final one in our Series introducing The Five Dimensions of Climate Justice: generational, distributive, environmental, climate, and justice for nature.

Climate change is the tip of the spear of human actions bringing about a loss of species so profound that our time has come to be called the Anthropocene by many scientists — an epoch in Earth’s history where humans are the dominant cause in a shift from one epoch to another not only involving species loss, but also all of the other climate impacts.

Climate is not the only driver of species loss, meaning there are other human behaviors that also must be addressed, such as habitat loss and degradation, over-exploitation (e.g., commercial fishing, hunting), the introduction of invasive species, and other forms of pollution. But climate has become the largest driver of biodiversity loss.

For those who work to protect nature, their reasons for doing so are distinct for each person. But their motivations for doing so include moral obligations for the rest of nature’s wellbeing.

For most, these are obligations to other persons, both present and future generations. They include a fair distribution of resources and the protection of beautiful, wild, and sacred places for everyone to enjoy.

Increasingly, such moral obligations are being extended to nature itself via the dimensions of justice. While some who work hard to protect nature do not employ the language of justice, the conversation about justice for nature, even though contentious, is important for providing a more robust defense of the rest of nature from humanity.

Once society accepts that an action falls under the provenance of justice, government has a role in creating and maintaining such justice. The claim of justice is not required for government action, but it creates a much firmer foundation.

Justice for nature goes beyond caring for it because of what it can do for humanity, as important and valuable as that may be for many who work to protect it. Justice for nature goes further than this utilitarian, anthropocentric perspective, even as such utilitarianism may be combined with a concern for justice.

Our valuations of nature, whether they lead to exploitation or protection, are highly variable and unstable.

Justice for nature asserts that it isn’t all about us. If nature has a claim for justice, it has a basis for protection independent of our sometimes capricious whims, even if tempered by noblesse oblige.

Some are ready to extend the concept of “rights” to other parts of nature, i.e., they have intrinsic, unalienable rights just like humans do that must be respected and protected. Such rights could hold at the eco-system level, the species level, or at the individual level — i.e., that each particular animal has rights. At whatever level, they are due the opportunity for life and liberty — for becoming who they were meant to be.

Others are motivated to protect the rest of creation as part of their moral obligation because of teachings from their faith tradition. This includes concepts such as the stewardship of nature, the sacredness of nature, or that we should live in balance or harmony with nature because of the interconnectedness of all things.

One such belief directly connected to the justice conversation is that the rest of creation has the equivalent of intrinsic value because God cares for it; its ultimate value comes from God’s valuation, not ours. And because of this belief in God’s valuation, the rest of Creation must be respected and protected for its own sake. It must be cared for in a way that allows it to become what God created it to be. That is what it is due, what justice calls for.

Finally, for some the scale of our past destruction, with exponentially greater destruction in the future if we don’t alter course, cries out that it is deeply, profoundly wrong, that it is unjust. This does not arise from philosophical or religious teachings, but rather from what we have done, what we have wrought, and that our present course will bring about a much greater calamity.

It is this unprecedented willful destruction never before seen in the history of the world that has them turning to the words “right” and “wrong” and “just” and “unjust.” Extinguishing a million species from the Earth, as we are on track to do if we don’t change course, is demonstrably, patently wrong on its face, in and of itself. That it is unjust is self-evident. It’s just plain wrong, period. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson: “We hold this truth to be self-evident: what we are doing to nature is wrong.”

However it is articulated and defended, our moral obligations for nature’s wellbeing are part of the five dimensions of climate justice we in the Climate Movement are striving to achieve working together with the other members of The Catalytic-4.

This is at the core of why we strive to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability for everyone and everything as we make our future come faster and our world more beautiful.

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Yes, it’s true. This time the rumors are correct. CATS can have agendas for their meetings.

CAT Recap

But before we get to our discussion of Climate Action Team meetings, let’s do a bit of a CAT recap. (For more, see other posts in this CATS Series.)

• CATS help us to be together enough, our sixth movement characteristic/imperative/goal. But they also help us become the rest of our seven characteristics as well: big and broad and active enough, passionate and deep enough, dynamic enough, organic and strategic enough, and around long enough to make a difference.

• CATS are volunteer groups or teams ideally made up of 5-10 members organized based on many factors, but usually revolving around things CAT members have in common: school, job/profession, organizational affiliation, faith community, where you live, shared interests, age. Your CAT could be the Tulsa Gardners CAT, the Beloit Bowlers CAT, the Shanghai Swifties CAT, the Pawtucket Plumbers CAT, etc.

• CATs are crucial. Other social forms — organizations, coalitions, associations, businesses, nations — won’t be enough to achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal. We need CATS.

• CATS are sui generis. Your CAT has never existed before. That means you get to create it. You get to determine what it is and how you do everything and what everyone’s roles are. Everything about your CAT is up to your CAT.

• CATS, therefore, are one of the greatest expressions of freedom of our time.

• Being a part of a CAT will help you achieve things you never could alone, and could become one of the great experiences of your life. Or not. It’s up to your CAT.

What CATS Do

Those of us who have joined The Climate Movement have promised to make a sustained commitment to collective action over time to achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal: to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

Wow. That’s a lot. That’s big. Glorious, but impossible on our own. That’s why it must be collective action over time.

CATS meet regularly to support each other in our efforts to fulfill our Climate Movement Promise.

So this is what CATS do:

• meet

• support

• act.

Ok, We’re Meeting. Now What?

So when we meet, how do we do the other two, support and act?

What I offer next are SUGGESTIONS. Remember: you and your CAT members are in charge of your CAT. You are free to decide what you are going to do. You’re a CAT, and you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do.

Dynamic Enough and Structure

It’s good to keep in mind that our fourth Movement characteristic is being dynamic enough, which is the combination of the tried-and-true, discipline, freedom, and creativity. All four are connected to structure.

As for tried-and-true, we can learn from, borrow from, and adapt past and current approaches.

Our meetings can be disciplined in the sense of time, process/rules, roles, and decision-making.

As in the case of Jazz, structure isn’t necessarily the enemy of freedom and creativity. In fact, it can release them. Especially when something is new, and when everyone is new, structure can turn chaos or vacuousness into strategic productivity, providing a sense of direction and helping to create forward momentum towards success and fulfillment. We can and must be both organic and strategic enough.

So you are free to determine how you will structure your:

• time

• rules

• roles

• decision-making.

Time: Meeting regularly and consistently and for an standard agreed upon length of time is best. The time and date for each meeting is agreed upon by the CAT. There can be a set time and day: e.g., each Wednesday from 7:30-8:30pm, or every other Tuesday from 8-9pm.

As for how you will spend your time productively, each meeting has an agenda (see sample below) that is agreed upon at the beginning. Consider creating a standard agenda that can be modified. Determine how long each meeting will go. Again, there can be a standard set time.

Rules: Articulate some basic ground rules that everyone affirms, e.g., that meetings begin and end on time, that everyone is treated with respect, that everyone honors the agenda and agrees to any modifications of the agenda. Establishing a process allows you to not waste time on process!

Roles: All roles (see below) should be designated and agreed upon by the CAT. A prime example: meetings should be facilitated. This could be one person or there could be a schedule with different people assuming the facilitator role for each meeting.

Decision-making: Agree on how decisions will be made. Consensus? Majority? A designated member? You could use all three and more. I would suggest consensus for major decisions, and designated roles for smaller decisions. Remember: consensus doesn’t necessarily mean unanimity. Individual members may voice their disagreement, but agree to go along with the rest of the CAT. Consensus builds group trust, cohesion, and belonging — all crucial for group success with big things and for the longevity of the CAT.

Agenda Suggestions

For structuring your time together through an agenda, here are some initial suggestions.

1. Keep Centered: Reaffirm Vision and Who You Are Creating a Better World For

Why does this CAT exist? Why are we devoting precious time and talent to it? It’s a good idea to continually remind ourselves why we are taking on this challenge on our Olympian Fields of Action.

At every meeting you could do two things to keep centered. The first at or near the beginning, the second at or near the end.

1. Reaffirm our vision, purpose, and Major Goal by saying it together:

To overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

2. Remind ourselves and each other who we are creating a better world for. Go around the circle and have each CAT member to say a name or names out loud. Members could also hold up to their chests a picture of the person or persons. After everyone has done so, together reaffirm the Better Future Covenant:

   “Together we will leave today’s children and their children and subsequent generations a better world free from pollution and the threat of climate change, a world with justice and prosperous sustainability where everyone and everything has what they need to live the lives intended for them, where everyone can become who they were meant to be.”

2. Discussion Topics

Group discussions help the CAT get to know one another, grow together as a team, and learn more about the climate challenge so you are better able to support one another in fulfilling your Climate Movement Promise and our Better Future Covenant.

• Movement Values

For CATS just getting started, discuss the 10 Movement Values I have put forward and determine which ones you will affirm as a CAT. Discuss any other values you may want to affirm and decide if you will add any to your list of affirmed Values of your CAT.

At every meeting discuss one of the values you have affirmed: love, justice, beauty, freedom, creativity, wisdom, pragmatism, non-violence, sustainability, and success.

• Climate Hope Together Posts

The CAT could decide to discuss any of the posts on the Climate Hope Together website. You could also go through any of the Series on the website, e.g., the Intro Series, the Hope & Justice Series, the Olympian Fields of Action Series, the CATS Series, the Our Values Series.

3. The Arts

Bring the Arts into your meetings — e.g., sing songs together, dance together, share photos together. Remember: we are all Climate Movement Artist-Athletes.

4. Closing

Determine together a way you would like to close each meeting, a positive activity that helps build team cohesion. For example, form a circle, touch hands in the center and say a Team phrase you create. This could be as simple as one word, e.g. “Team!” Or it could be the name of your CAT, e.g. “Sebastian CAT!”

Roles

There can be lots of roles within each CAT. Below are a few suggestions. There can be agreed upon terms of service for each role. Each CAT can come up with names for designated roles — descriptive ones like I’m using below, or more colorful ones created by your CAT.

Facilitator — As mentioned above, this can be one person or multiple people on a rotating basis. The facilitator organizes the agenda and leads the CAT through it, encouraging member participation, while helping the CAT to begin and end on time to be respectful of everyone’s time. In short, they run/facilitate the meeting in keeping with everything that has been agreed upon by the CAT. They bring out the best in everyone and make sure everyone feels valued and has a voice.

Value Keepers — Appoint individuals in the group to be the “keeper” or guardian of each of the CAT’s values and the Better Future Covenant, serving to keep each one alive by facilitating the actualization of their particular value. The keeper will be on the lookout for how the CAT is living in and living out their Value, and report to the Team their observations, praising the group for fulfilling the Value, or encouraging the Team to more fully live in and live out love, justice, beauty, freedom, creativity, wisdom, pragmatism, non-violence, sustainability, and success. A Value-Keeper can be the guardian of more than one.

Action-Actualizer — Ensures that a steady stream of actions are proposed, agreed upon, and carried out by the CAT. (See more, below.)

Joy-Spotter — Appoint someone to be the CAT’s “joy-spotter,” who will point out joys within the Team’s orbit as well as those happening in the Climate Movement.

Wisdom-Facilitator — See more on wisdom below.

Actions

Urgency Reminder — At every meeting the Action-Actualizer can remind the CAT that we are on the kairos-climate-clock where speed and scale of change are imperatives. The time for bold, consistent, strategic action is now.

Justice Reminder — For all we do as members of a CAT, the three actions of justice — stopping bad stuff, setting wrong right, and making things better — must be a part of the discussion. We must be doing at least one of the three actions of justice, and, wherever possible, doing all three. The CAT should discuss how each proposed action is doing so.

Where: Actions take place on what I have called our Olympian Fields of Action. Such Fields of Action can include: the Climate Movement itself; where you work or go to school; any other groups/associations/faith communities you belong to; your neighborhood, city, county, state, and nation, businesses you patronize — in short, where you and your CAT can make a strategic difference. This includes pushing the other three Catalytic Sources of Transformation to play their roles creating the speed and scale of change that’s needed.

Remember: the two Fields of Action that we all are on together are (1) growing and improving The Climate Movement, and; (2) engaging politicians/policymakers.

Who: In terms of who are carrying out actions, there are three basic kinds:

• Individual actions

• CAT actions

• Movement actions.

Individual actions — CATS exist to support their members in climate action, e.g., growing The Climate Movement by talking to a friend. Between meetings each team member should be involved in action and report on how they are moving forward with action and/or how they have completed specific actions and what the results were and how they contribute to our vision, purpose, and Major Goal. All members should receive encouragement and any help needed in carrying out individual actions.

CAT actions — The team should discuss, approve, plan, and implement CAT actions that are specific to your CAT, such as local actions done together.

Movement actions — Being strategic includes participating in joint efforts: e.g., campaigns, boycotts, marches, local events nation-wide on the same day, etc.

Keep this in mind: even defeats can contribute, e.g. by building stronger CAT relationships, by learning what works and what doesn’t — both of which set the stage for future victories.

Wisdom

Our Movement Values are characterized by three things: they inspire, they guide, and they are valuable to us. One Movement Value to be highlighted for healthy, well-functioning, and fun CATS is wisdom.

For us wisdom is the ability to discern:

• how to balance our values with one another and the circumstances;

• the best course of action to take when what choice to make isn’t clear;

• how to balance and integrate organic and strategic change;

• gifts and abilities in others;

• our limits;

• who can be trusted;

• when to take risks;

• when to compromise, and when not to;

• when to retreat, regroup, and live to fight another day.

We don’t always get things right. The world is too complex for that. But wisdom improves our odds of taking the right course of action towards ultimate victory while maintaining our integrity.

So, in a nutshell: wisdom guides us in our search for victory with integrity. This is a profound source of inspiration for action. It’s hard to beat a victory with integrity, and when we do achieve it we want more.

Wisdom includes discerning the gifts and abilities of those on our Climate Action Team. At CAT meetings those gifts and abilities must be recognized and called out and supported when they are put into action for the CAT.

Remember: wisdom isn’t just an attribute of individuals; it can be the product of group discussion. The CAT should recognize someone to be the Wisdom-Facilitator (or another name you come up with). There can also be more than one and they can trade off or co-facilitate.

Suggested Sample CAT Agenda

Led by the CAT Facilitator

1. Welcome and Brief Announcements — Facilitator

2. Recite Vision Together: “We are overcoming climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.” — Led by Facilitator

3. Discussion Topic: AI Data Centers — Designated CAT member

4. Action: Remind everyone we’re on the kairos-climate-clock; review your last CAT action; have members report on individual actions and discuss how the CAT can help; discuss the next CAT action, e.g., working with local activists to oppose a proposed local AI Data Center; discuss how actions achieve justice; remind everyone of the upcoming Climate Movement march. — Action Actualizer

5. Values: Ask Values-Keepers to share any thoughts past and/or upcoming actions and group activities. — Relevant Values-Keepers

6. Time For Wisdom — Let your Wisdom-Facilitator have the floor for any reflections or suggested discussion.

7. Song: Sing the CAT’s song (i.e. a song chosen by the CAT as your song) — Designated Song Leader

8. Motivation: Each member holds a photo up and shares out loud a name or names of people who we are creating a better world for — Facilitator

9. Final Announcements: Reminders, etc — Facilitator

10. Closing: “Team!” — the CAT

CATS Are Crucial

Without CATS we won’t become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world. We won’t make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful and our future come faster. We won’t create the needed speed and scale. We won’t overcome climate by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

With CATS we can do it all.

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If you are new here, check out our Intro Series and other posts in our CATS Series. If you like this post, please “like,” comment, and share. And thanks for all you’re doing.

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Local grassroots opposition to AI data centers continues to grow, and The Climate Movement must engage.

The Promise and Peril of AI are One Thing

Let me back up a second. ARTC or the accelerating rate of tech change is our Third Catalytic Sources of Transformation for overcoming climate change, and AI is a product of ARTC. While there are serious concerns about the future trajectory of AI, there’s no question it can be used today to help speed up needed innovations beneficial for overcoming climate change.

Massive AI Data Centers Are Another: Pollution, Water Scarcity, Bills Going Up

Both the concerns about AI in the future and its climate potential are totally separate questions from the current explosion of AI data centers across the US and other nations.

Local communities are fighting back, including a new tactic: citizen referendums.

As Politico reports:

Why the local opposition?

The sudden massive power demands are creating climate pollution and air pollution as utilities are turning to fossil fuel power plants to deal with it. They are also creating water scarcity due to the cooling needs of these AI systems, consuming up to “5 million gallons per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people.”

A recent peer-reviewed study found that:

These new AI data centers also are driving up electricity prices and creating grid instability and unreliability.

It’s the locals vs. Big Tech and their political allies. David and Goliath.

The Climate Movement must join with local opposition to stop these current approaches. But there needs to be action at the state and national levels as well. Politicians need to get on the right side of this grassroots uprising.

These AI data centers should be off-grid and power their own needs with clean energy. We have the clean tech to easily handle this right now, creating lots of good-paying climate-friendly jobs in the process. This will require changed laws that monopolistic utilities could easily fight.

If they are smart, Big Tech will join the locals and The Climate Movement to get this done.

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As I will discuss below, the US clean energy industry is finally waking up to the fact that they must actively defeat their political foes like Chip Roy (R-TX).

But what about us? Must we also do the same? As I said in one of my first posts, the answer is yes. This brings up the question of hope and fear: opposites? compliments?

Hope, Fear, and The Climate Movement

Fear can be devastating for current and future Climate Action Artist-Athletes and Climate Action Supporters. The fear that it’s too late to overcome climate change becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such fear destroys hope. It can be one of the worst hope-stealing emotions. This dynamic was a driving factor in why I have worked for 15 years to create the message of this Substack.

But when we look at the two Olympian Fields of Action we all must be engaged on — (1) growing and improving The Climate Movement and (2) engaging policymakers — we see that hope and fear are not opposites. They are complements.

The question is: who has hope and who is afraid?

Here’s the answer. We have hope, and our foes and fair-weather friends are afraid of us. That’s the winning formula.

Some might think: “Isn’t making others afraid run against the grain of all your hope happy-talk? Isn’t hope “nice”?

First, I don’t do happy-talk. I do the opposite. What I offer is realistic hope from actions we take together and founded upon justice.

Second, people striving for justice will never be perceived as “nice” by others who benefit from the status quo or those uncomfortable with conflict. That said, our Movement Value of love must shape how we work for justice even as it presses us to achieve it. Thus, on the one hand, seeking justice isn’t an excuse to be a jerk, and on the other, the negative perceptions of others must not stop us.

Our Two Forms of Power — a Needed Symbosis

Ok, how does our hope-fear winning formula happen? From our two forms of power:

• moral power

• people power.

Our moral power comes from the fact that our cause is just, from the feeling in our gut that this is just plain wrong and must be made right — and the acknowledgement of this by most of our contemporaries.

Simply put: climate action is the right thing to do.

This plants the seeds of hope. When people acknowledge the rightness of our cause it bends the possibility of success in our favor.

At the center of this rightness is justice. Without justice we aren’t a moral movement. And if we aren’t a moral movement, we aren’t a movement at all.

Moral power provides an incredible advantage over our foes. If you need convincing, just watch how they try to make arguments against our moral power.

“All that moral jawboning and posturing doesn’t really matter in the real world.”

And then out of the other side of their mouths —

“Actually, we have the moral high ground. We’re the ones who have moral superiority! They are the ones who are really harming people, not us.”

Those doing wrong desperately try to convince themselves and others that they are in the right. But we know they are wrong, and in their hearts those who know right from wrong know it to.

Our moral power is the beating heart of The Climate Movement. Without it we don’t exist. With it we begin to hope.

Yet the honest truth is that without people power our moral power won’t get us very far in the political space. It can bend voters in our direction, and even a few politicians. That’s valuable, but for many our moral power won’t seal the deal.

Concomitantly, without our moral power we won’t achieve our people power. That’s at the core of our moral power, its potential to make people power. With it we can grow our first two Catalytic Sources of Transformation:

• The Climate Movement, and

• Climate Action Supporters.

The former is indispensable, the catalyst of catalysts.

The latter provide the bulk of the popular support for needed actions, and as such they are essential. They are the closers, the clinchers, the calvary. We need them to become 80+% of a population. Most of these folks support climate action because they believe it’s the right thing to do.

Thus, our moral power and people power are a needed symbiosis. Together they can help us grow The Climate Movement to our goal of 5% of the population by 2030. Worldwide we’re talking 400 million. In the US we must grow to 16 million.

It is The Climate Movement that will drive the other three Catalytic Sources of Transformation forward at the speed and scale needed as we overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

This is why the most strategic thing we can be doing right now is growing and improving The Climate Movement. We must become big and broad and active enough, our first movement characteristic/imperative/goal, so that our story and efforts cannot be suppressed, missed, or ignored as we achieve message saturation and values engagement.

In this case we have two audiences:

1. potential movement recruits, found mainly in Climate Action Supporters, our second Catalytic Source of Transformation, and

2. politicians and those running for office, a strategic constituency making up a vital part of our fourth Catalytic Source of Transformation, Governments-&-Markets.

We must be active enough so that these audiences are reminded regularly of the necessity of bold climate action now — so much so that this is at the forefront of their hearts and minds and engages their values and connects to what they hold most dear.

Phew! We’ve got a lot of work to do. The good news is that we will do it together.

We Must Create Political Power Via People Power

Striving for what’s right combined with our people power must now include defeating our most vociferous political foes. We must put the fear of our political power into the nervous systems of such opponents.

We must make foes fear us.

But, frankly, not just foes. We must make politicians whose support for climate action blows with the political winds fear us enough to act like champions. And we must vote out those who are too unreliable.

Precisely because climate change is causing extreme weather, the time for fair weather friends is over; we can’t afford them in the political space.

The US Clean Energy Industry Is Finally Waking Up

And so I applaud a new effort by the clean energy industry in the US and their allies to defeat their political foes like Republican Chip Roy of Texas pictured at the top, who is now running for Attorney General in Texas. In Congress Roy led the successful effort to destroy $600 billion in federal incentives for clean energy signed into law by President Biden. (Mr. Roy does not oppose all the $$ support for the fossils, because he somehow doesn’t think they’re subsidies.)

Roy’s response to the campaign against him is pure Trumpian vindictive bravado:

“You want to come after me? Then I’m taking two of your guys. We got a good chunk of your subsidies removed last year. Just wait until the next go-round.”

Honestly, it’s well past time for such a campaign against our foes to happen, and the clean energy industry has got a lot of catching up to do. As the NYT reported:

Renewables have a long way to go before they approach parity in political spending with fossil fuels. Oil and gas interests donated $75 million to elect Mr. Trump in the 2024 election, and the fossil fuel industry spent a total of $450 million on a combination of donations, lobbying and advertising.

The renewable energy industry, by comparison, donated about $2.5 million in the 2024 cycle.

$450 million versus $2.5 million. You do the math.

So Can We Be Allies?

The Climate Movement doesn’t have the $$ to make our political foes afraid like these folks do. But once we become what we are meant to be — 16 million strong here in the US and 80+% of popular support as measured in polls — we will have the people power to make them afraid and our allies strong.

It is helpful for the political calculus of politicians to include the financial power of the clean energy industry.

If along the way towards our vision we can create alliances of integrity with the clean energy industry, then we should do so.

But, frankly, the industry’s major goals are different than ours. Theirs are primarily financial and market-driven.

Our vision, purpose, and Major Goal is to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. To do so requires speed and scale, and we must be the ones to push for this and for justice.

The industry’s interests only partially overlap with ours. Some in the clean energy industry may recognize that we are pulling in the same direction, but want us to do so independently — no coordination; no relationship.

Furthermore, our moral message could make some uncomfortable; they could even see it as counterproductive given some of their customers and political allies aren’t in favor of climate action. Worse, it could be that some in the clean energy industry oppose our efforts.

Where our interests do overlap we must go into this clear-eyed with the courage to do what’s right, guided by our Movement Values of love, justice, freedom, creativity, wisdom, pragmatism, sustainability, and success. With love driving us forward, we must have wisdom guide us in how to combine pragmatism, justice, sustainability, and success with any allies where we have common ground.

It is this combination of our moral power and people power with our Movement Values that helps to give us hope. And if all of this strikes fear in the hearts of our foes and fair weather friends, then we hope that such fear can propel them towards stepping into the light and changing course and doing what’s right.

Join us in creating our people power!

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I have suggested that for The Climate Movement there are five overlapping dimensions of justice: generational, distributive, environmental, climate, and justice for nature.

This is our final post in our subseries on Climate Justice, and is focused on achieving Climate Justice by making things better, the third of the three actions of justice. So what is involved in doing so?

Everything.

All we do as the Climate Movement on our Olympian Fields of Action. All the efforts of our Climate Action Supporters. All we do through ARTC and Governments-&-Markets to achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal: to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. All we do through the other two actions of justice: stopping bad stuff and setting wrong right.

In sum: all we do as The Catalytic-4.

I simply can’t think of anything we do that isn’t trying to make things better in relation to climate justice, in working to address the five distinct aspects of climate change that call forth our efforts to achieve climate justice:

1) legacy emissions and legacy pollution;

2) the systemic aggregate nature of the problem;

3) the simultaneous erasure of margins of safety, such as the destructive momentum built up in the oceans;

4) tipping points;

5) the unjust distribution of consequences.

While every step in the right direction makes things better, we can’t settle for making things less bad. If we are not careful, these five distinctive aspects can lead us in that direction, can have us settle for stopping the bad stuff. There is a huge amount to do to stop the bad stuff, but we can do so in ways that also set wrong right and make things better. We must continually strive for all three together.

Justice won’t let us stop with stopping the bad stuff. We must keep moving forward. We must keep making steps in the right direction until things are actually better.

Moreover, making things better can never be separated from setting wrong right and remain part of achieving justice. If things are made better only or primarily for those who haven’t been seriously impacted by climate change, or who won’t be in the future, we haven’t achieved justice; indeed, we have made things more unjust, and therefore we really haven’t made things better at all.

Thus, when it comes to justice, including climate justice, we must never forget that we can’t make things better if we don’t also set wrong right. As I’ve said, this means those who have been the most harmed, and those most threatened — the poor, the powerless and less powerful, the marginalized, the vulnerable, children and subsequent generations, and the rest of nature — must be at the front of the line when we are making things better.

This won’t happen on its own. We must make it happen. We must make justice happen.

Together, as we strive for justice we become our better selves, we become who we always hoped we would be. And along the way, as we achieve some measure of justice, we create a hope that keeps us moving forward in this great calling to stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better and our future come faster — all accomplished through The Catalytic-4 working together.

This is why hope and justice are a reinforcing symbiosis. Justice creates hope; hope empowers justice.

Without this calling to achieve justice we can’t have the dual power we need to be the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world on all of our Olympian Fields of Action. We can’t be a moral movement. We won’t have the moral power to create the power of numbers we need to be the first and indispensable Catalytic Source of Transformation that pushes the other three — Climate Action Supporters, ARTC, Governments-and-Markets — to become what they must be. We won’t overcome climate change.

This is why love is our most important Movement Value. This is why we must come together to support one another through the Climate Movement. Only continuously empowered by love, only as we move forward together, can we live in and live out our calling for justice until we see justice in the lives of those who never deserved anything less.

Our love must give birth to justice.

And then we will see it. We will see the hope from justice that is everyone’s birthright. Sustained by our love, we will make hope happen when together we make justice happen and our future come faster. Striving together we are creating our justice masterpiece. Join us!

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Because domestic cats have a tendency to get themselves into trouble, we joke that they have nine lives. Well, we could use some of that longevity when it comes to CATS or Climate Action Teams. I leave it up to each CAT to determine what their nine lives constitutes!

CATS can help with the long enough dimension of climate action, our seventh characteristic/imperative/goal of the Climate Movement, by helping individuals increase their length of active engagement.

However, if there is one Achilles heel of Climate Action Teams it is their longevity. To be honest, some CATS may not fulfill their potential on this score. They may not even make it to the Olympic Trials and compete on their Olympian Fields of Action. In other words, they may not fulfill their potential on any of the seven essential characteristics and goals of the Climate Movement because they don’t exist long enough or are dysfunctional to the point where they cannot achieve anything, wasting precious time and talent — snuffing out many of their nine lives all at once.

If passion is not combined with humility, if narcissistic “righteousness” masquerades as a search for justice, if morality is just another word in service of getting one’s own way, if creativity cannot or will not help in achieving our vision, purpose, and Major Goal but is trapped in its own vanity, if our choices don’t bring about the fullness of freedom but rather its opposite, if love is not true to itself and the achievement of justice not its aim, then such a CAT will actually impede needed progress.

In such cases it should be dissolved quickly and individual Artist-Athletes should find or create a new CAT that can make it to their Olympian Fields of Action and help our Movement become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world. The kairos-climate-clock and the success of our vision, purpose, and Major Goal demand it.

Remember, though, that action-types, justice-types, those who push for change, well … we can be strong-willed, bull-headed, hot-blooded, arrogant, and a whole lot of other traits that make relationships bumpy and challenging. So if you see potential or diamonds in the rough, have the wisdom not to pull the plug prematurely. It may just be that the litter box needs a good cleaning!

The Climate Movement, just like all social change movements, is and will be a bit of a mess. But it’s our mess. Organic messes are fine. Toxic dysfunctional ones are not. It can take wisdom and patience — but not too much patience — to know the difference.

Even healthy, well-functioning CATS may last just a few years, but in that time they kept their Artist-Athletes at it. And as one CAT’s season comes and goes, you are free to join another one! CATS may not last as long as organizations, but they still can increase the time individuals devote to organic and strategic climate action. They can also forge friendships that last a lifetime, friendships that can help our Movement in a future we cannot yet see.

CAT Promise

Finally, let me suggest a Climate Action Team Promise that each Artist-Athlete affirms. It should be made publicly in front of your Team and possibly others.

Members promise to:

• Show up and see each other regularly face to face (or screen-to-screen).

• Show up and grow The Climate Movement by having others join your CAT, or if the CAT is full, start another CAT.

• Show up and affirm our Ten Movement Values: love, justice, beauty, freedom, creativity, wisdom, pragmatism, non-violence, sustainability, and success.

• Show up and nurture organic change within your CAT as you value and call out everyone’s gifts and creativity.

• Show up and grow together and support one another in our commitment to our vision, purpose, and Major Goal: overcoming climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

• Show up and regularly participate in collective action.

• Show up and work together to help create The Climate Movement into the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world.

• Show up to stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better and our future come faster, thereby making hope happen.

You may have noticed a theme: you gotta show up!

Who is the Promise made to, whether implicitly or explicitly?

• Yourself

• Your family

• Your friends

• To everyone you love

• Your Climate Action Team

• To all who have been and will be harmed

• To what is greater than yourself

It may just be that being a part of a Climate Action Team is the greatest thing you’ll ever do to create a better world.

When all is said and done you will look back and realize that in becoming a creative Artist-Athlete on your Climate Action Team you made a contribution you could never have done on your own. You will see that your CAT called forth from you gifts you didn’t know you had that transformed the rest of your life, taking you in directions and towards achievements you never thought possible. You will see that being a part of your CAT gave you the courage to live out your values, to put yourself on the line for the greatest cause of your life, the greatest cause of our time. Thanks to the support of your CAT you were there. You were where you were supposed to be, making a contribution only you could have made. Instead of an absence, you were a presence, a glorious, faithful presence that made a difference.

When all is said and done and you look back on your life you will see that being an Artist-Athlete on your Climate Action Team was one of the things that helped make sure your life meant something, that your being on this earth mattered. You were part of something beautiful that made the world a better place.

Ours is a time for regular folk to become heroes together. Nothing less than greatness is our calling. Being a part of a CAT can make this a reality.

So Join The Climate Movement and create/join a CAT!

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I love salt. I’ll never forget the day my doctor told me to add salt to my diet. I was thirsty all the time and yet I was drinking water constantly. Solution? Salt.

Well, we just may need a little sodium in our energy diet. Or maybe a lot of sodium. It’s “salt-shaker-storage” time, so to speak.

This is the second of a two-part ARTC Series on energy storage focused on batteries. Part One contextualized the Series in our broader conversation about our Third Catalytic Source of Transformation, the accelerating rate of technological change or ARTC, and then focused on lithium ion batteries with their falling costs, rising sales, and increased volume.

This post starts our continuing conversation about the future of energy storage focusing on what’s ready to take off: sodium-ion batteries.

Sodium-ion batteries are very similar to lithium-ion batteries. They are competitors in many of the same market niches for stationary and mobile energy storage needs. They store electrical energy as chemical energy so it can be turned back into electricity when needed.

The MIT Technology Review calls sodium-ion batteries one of their “10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2026.” Why? Because sodium-ion batteries

offer potential cost reductions of more than 30%, improved performance in extreme temperatures, and reduced supply chain risks associated with lithium mining.

Whereas lithium is only available in a few countries (Chile, China, Australia) and its mining is environmentally damaging, sodium is 1,000 times more prevalent and is found all over the world.

Bottom line: when it comes to EVs and energy storage for electricity, lithium is the present, but sodium will be a big part of the future.

When will sodium’s future arrive? It’s just beginning.

EVs

When it comes to EVs with sodium-ion batteries, three Chinese companies are leading the charge:

• BYD, the world’s largest EV manufacturer and second largest battery manufacturer;

• CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, and;

• BAIC or the Beijing Automotive Group, China’s sixth-largest automobile manufacturer.

These three are pushing each other to get better.

Recently BAIC announced a prototype vehicle with the following specs:

• fully charged in 11 minutes;

• a 280 mile range based on an energy density of over 170Wh/kg, and;

• can operate in -40F to 140F (extreme temps are an achilles heal of litium).

This summer CATL will introduce the first mass-produced EV with sodium-ion batteries and around a 250 mile range. They have also announced a sodium-ion battery with 175 Wh per kg, which also allows for around a 280 mile range. These batteries also “demonstrate high safety, passing tested under tough conditions including crushing, drilling, and sawing without smoke or fire while maintaining continuous power supply.”

Goodby:

• the overhyped “range anxiety”;

• charging time concern;

• decreased performance in lower temperatures;

• safety concerns.

Hello market share.

Stationary Energy Storage Systems (ESS)

Currently Sodium-ion batteries are a teeny tiny fraction of the utility-scale battery market. The IRENA graph below tries hard to picture this. Is there some yellow up at the top representing Sodium? Squint hard. Even if you can’t quite see it, it’s supposed to be there.

Even so, analysts are bullish about sodium-ion’s future. A key factor: sodium’s abundance and geographical spread make it a much cheaper input than lithium.

A recent announcement about a potential game-changer has them even more excited. BYD has developed a sodium-ion battery with a 10,000 charge life cycle, which equates to 20-30 years or more.

When looked at from the Periodic Table, both lithium and sodium are light elements — but sodium is three times heavier. This allows for greater energy density in lithium batteries. For EVs this means longer range and greater efficiency because lithium batteries weigh less for comparable performance.

For stationary situations, this weight advantage doesn’t apply.

Thus, sodium-ion’s advantages for stationary systems start to add up:

• a cheaper input;

• superior performance in extreme temperatures;

• systems lasting 20-30 years or longer;

• weight and energy density less of a factor or even a non-issue.

BloombergNEF projects that by 2030 sodium-ion battery systems could account for 23% of the stationary energy storage market. And if economies of scale kick in sooner, uptake will go faster.

Two years ago sodium-ion’s characteristics and potential led one analyst, Auke Hoekstra, to pen this speculation:

Sodium batteries will become ridiculously cheap. That in turn will revamp our electricity grid: local demand response will be key, resilience and grid stability will improve, grid reinforcements will become less of a costly bottleneck, and solar and wind will thrive. In terms of our energy system, batteries will change everything. … And all of a sudden we will put stationary batteries everywhere.

We’re not there yet. But we could be.

With lower costs and better performance for both lithium and sodium batteries, and with hybrid systems combining them for the best of both, such energy storage will transform the electricity sector:

• renewables + batteries = zero climate pollution from energy generation, storage, and utilization;

• bye-bye fossils;

• more freedom from the grid, less dependency on monopolistic utilities, more off-grid systems, and less need for new grids or expensive grid upgrades paid for by consumers.

In sum: clean, climate-friendly, cheap, and reliable.

The Battery Future Ain’t Either/Or

The beginning of the rise of sodium-ion batteries doesn’t mean the fall of lithium batteries anytime soon. It’s not one or the other, but one and the other.

Lithium battery manufacturers and researchers are continuing to innovate, e.g. improving energy density that increases EV range, and performance in very cold weather, as well as reducing full charging times to as little as 5 minutes.

One analyst sums up the situation for stationary energy storage:

Forecasts suggest sodium-ion shipments could expand rapidly over the next five years, moving from early GWh-scale deployments toward meaningful grid-level penetration by 2030. The trajectory points toward diversification, not displacement.
Lithium will remain critical.

But sodium has crossed a psychological and technical threshold.
The 10,000-cycle benchmark signals that sodium-ion is no longer a fallback technology — it is a strategic pillar in the global energy transition.

The future of batteries will not be singular. It will be multi-chemistry, application-optimized, and supply-chain resilient. And sodium has officially entered the core conversation.

The Catalytic-4 Must Deliver Speed & Scale

The International Energy Agency (IEA) loves to throw water on tech market penetration by up-and-comers like sodium-ion batteries, and do so here as well:

Relying on potential disruptive breakthroughs is a precarious foundation for business success, and especially for broader industrial strategy. In the absence of an efficient, competitive battery manufacturing ecosystem, even promising advances may struggle to reach commercial scale quickly enough to deliver real benefits.

Of course, the IEA consistently underestimated how quickly renewables would ramp up. So there’s that.

Still, we can’t afford for them to be right on any up-and-comers who can make a strategic difference.

In general, outside of speciality niches, it will take a few years before sodium batteries are cost-competitive, and then have a cost-advantage.

However, price doesn’t always win, at least in a timely fashion. Intransigence, ignorance, inertia, wanting to milk what will become stranded assets — these barriers and others can slow the uptake of sodium-ion batteries.

What this means for us is simple: for any promising tech that will help us overcome climate change, The Catalytic-4 must work together to deliver speed and scale. That means The Climate Movement must play its strategic role and push their other three to play their roles. If things aren’t moving fast enough, we must push until they are.

So where we see that sodium-ion batteries — or any other promising tech — can help us achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal we must push their uptake and utilization.

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To achieve the climate dimension of justice we must do the three major actions of justice: stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better. I will cover the first two in this post.

Stop Bad Stuff

For some, this is what we are about: eliminate climate pollution that leads to climate impacts at the speed and scale necessary. That’s a huge, huge lift in itself.

But eliminating the pollution that leads to impacts is not the only bad stuff we must stop. We cannot have a narrow carbon/GHG-centric view of climate justice. We cannot just be focused on those emissions.

We cannot pluck carbon out of the muck and say we’re done.

We must recognize the interrelated overlap of climate pollution with other dimensions of justice — distributive justice, environmental justice, justice for nature — as well as our vision, purpose, and Major Goal: to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. Enhancing wellbeing includes addressing the human health impacts of fossil fuels and the impacts of environmental degradation on people and the rest of nature.

Some technological and policy solutions stop the bad stuff much more completely than others, such as electricity produced by solar, wind, and geothermal, as opposed to coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power. Others pluck carbon out and must be combined with other efforts, such as carbon capture that isn’t nature-based. Even nature-based sequestration must be done in a manner that promotes ecosystem health.

And, of course, stopping bad stuff isn’t the only action of justice. We must also set wrong right and make things better. The technological solutions already mentioned can help with these, too, if thought through from the start and implemented fully.

Set Wrong Right

What does it mean to set wrong right for those most harmed: the poor, the powerless and less powerful, the vulnerable, the marginalized, today’s children and subsequent generations, and the rest of nature?

Does setting wrong right in the context of climate justice mean holding those accountable in some way? Does it include what is called retributive justice, which usually involves some form of punishment? Fines? Penalties? Incarceration?

I personally don’t think retribution is a constructive response in keeping with all of our Movement Values.

If fines and penalties can be imposed through the courts that could serve as a deterrent. But it will never be near enough.

What if those accountable are no longer living? What if a Big Producer of Polluting Products goes out of business?

There are many instances where a nation has done things to set past wrongs right (e.g., reparations). This is one of those times.

Instead of retribution, what about the polluter pays principle? With climate change, polluter pays is different than, say, it is for toxic pollution. Instead of paying to clean up the pollution, the polluter pays to address climate consequences; that’s the mess to be cleaned up.

For nations and Big Producers who are accountable, to set wrong right is to clean up the mess you made. The climate version of polluter pays is a partial response, but not a complete one.

You must also make amends for the harm caused.

So in setting wrong right there are two interrelated steps: (1) clean up the mess; (2) make amends and help heal the harm.

More specifically, for the Big Producers of Polluting Products and countries primarily responsible for past emissions, setting wrong right means two basic things in the climate context.

1) Cleaning up the mess you made by paying for adaptation, funding “Loss and Damage,” and helping build resilience.

2) Making amends and healing the harm by making things better for those who have been wronged, including the rest of nature.

Precisely because we are dealing with justice and not charity, setting wrong right in these ways cannot simply be left to good intentions.

First, the nations and Big Producers primarily accountable must help those most harmed by funding and assisting with adaptation efforts and building resilience in its many forms: strong, innovative economies powered by abundant clean energy, good healthcare, high quality universal education, impact-ready infrastructure, food and water security, and species protection and ecosystem restoration.

Cleaning up the mess must also involve paying for what is called in the international climate negotiations “Loss and Damage.”

Conceptually this is rather straightforward. If you break something, you pay for it. If you have caused climate impacts, you pay for the loss and damage. Of course, given both the historic nature of climate emissions and the systemic aggregate nature of the problem, assigning accountability is incredibly complicated, let alone highly politically fraught. Nevertheless, it must be attempted, and some very modest progress has been made via the international climate negotiations concerning the relationships between and among nation-states.

But what about the Big Polluters of Polluting Products who are accountable for climate change?

Remember, climate accountability involves five classes:

1. Nations, or more specifically, national governments.

2. Upstream fossil fuel producers that are state owned (i.e., where the state has a controlling interest), or are state-owned-and-run enterprises.

3. Upstream fossil fuel producers that are investor-owned corporations (both public and private).

4. Midstream state owned and state-owned-and-run fossil fuel burning utilities.

5. Midstream investor-owned fossil fuel utilities.

The international climate negotiations are attempting to deal with the first class, and by extension the second and fourth classes. But what about three and five, investor-owned upstream and midstream Big Producers of Polluting Products, the oil companies and the fossil fuel utilities?

In the minds of many my third class are the really bad actors. They account for 31% of the fossil climate pollution from 1940-2022, and four are in the top ten from 1854-2023: Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell.

How much harm is each one accountable for? How much should they pay to set wrong right and clean up the mess they’ve made?

For example, a recent effort published in the journal Nature concluded that Chevron is accountable for between “$791 billion and $3.6 trillion in heat-related losses over the period 1991–2020.” More broadly, the study found that “extreme heat linked to greenhouse gas emissions from 111 companies cost the world economy $28 trillion.”

That’s just looking at one impact, extreme heat, over only 20 years.

Another study hot off the press (Mar. 25, 2026) by Burke et al in the journal Nature, shows that even after discounting future damages, i.e., making them worth less (which I consider to be immoral1), Big Producers of Polluting Products are accountable for mind-boggling amounts of loss and damage.

For example, as shown in their graph below, Saudi Aramco is accountable for $64 trillion in past and future damages based on pollution from their products between 1988-2015. ExxonMobil is accountable for $29 trillion. Without discounting it would and should be much more.

One thing Burke et al remind us of, which is captured in their graph: “estimated past damages will only account for a modest subset of the anticipated total damages that a historical emission will eventually cause. Settling debts for past damages will therefore not settle debts for past emissions (p. 961).” In other words, we are dealing with two harms: past harm (the light green part of the bars above) and future harm (the dark green). Again, the dark green has been discounted, which it shouldn’t be, meaning that the harm is even greater. But why future harm from past pollution? Because CO2 stays in the atmosphere trapping heat until it is removed through the carbon cycle or by carbon capture technologies.

Second, making amends by doing the third action of justice, making things better, can go a long way towards setting past wrong right— e.g., using climate solutions to create a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything, especially the poor, the powerless and less powerful, the marginalized, the vulnerable, children and subsequent generations, and the rest of nature.

These two actions of justice are not separate, they are united. We do both when we achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal.

More specifically, to set wrong right means that those most harmed are at the front of the line when it comes to enhancing wellbeing. It means we have a particular focus on ensuring that their lives are made better — and made better in a substantial way so that their wellbeing is in keeping with that of everyone else.

A rising-tide-lifts-all-boats approach simply will not do. There is no such thing as trickle-down justice — a dangerous and deadly sham. For those who have been, are being, and will be the most harmed we must be intentional about raising the level of wellbeing to that enjoyed by everyone.

For example, Sub-Saharan Africa, with many nations that will be hit by climate impacts, is projected to continue to be mired in energy poverty through 2050. We must not let that happen. Energy prosperity from generating their own power via renewables plus storage must be their future.

In the vast majority of circumstances setting wrong right will have to be accomplished by appropriate levels of government ensuring that it be done. This can certainly take place through climate policies but should not be limited to them. The Catalytic-4 must work together to achieve all of climate justice.

Setting wrong right, including for the rest of nature, cannot be the orphan of climate justice, or the forgotten step-child. Without it there isn’t justice.

“Gee, we always meant to do it; somehow we just never got there. Oops.”

For some in the Climate Movement, this is your Olympian Field of Action on which to lead the rest of us. For some CATS, this could be a major focus. We need you to go for Gold. We need you to direct us on when and how to weigh in at strategic moments to make setting wrong right a reality. There is no more important job.

Where’s the hope for climate justice in stopping bad stuff and setting wrong right? We’re the hope! We make hope happen by making justice happen. Join us!

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With this post we are continuing our Subseries on CATS or Climate Action Teams.

Thus far we’ve discussed how CATS can make us: (1) big and broad and active enough, our first Climate Movement characteristic/imperative/goal in the first post, (2) passionate enough and deep enough, our second and third characteristics/imperatives/goals, and (3) dynamic enough, our fourth characteristic/imperative/goal.

Because we are in kairos-climate-time, to make our future come faster we need to be organic and strategic enough, our fifth characteristic/imperative/goal of The Climate Movement.

Out of all of our social forms, all the ways we can be together enough, CATS are where the combination of organic and strategic change will be — must be — the most powerful. Living in and living out our Movement Values of wisdom, pragmatism, and creativity, messy and non-linear must be combined with efficient and targeted to achieve something stronger and more effective than either alone. That’s hard. It’s also glorious.

CATS are organic precisely because each one is sui generis. In contrast to existing organizations and campaigns, there has never been a group like you before, nor will there be one like you ever again. You don’t have to think and do things outside the box because you were never in the box. You make your own box — and it doesn’t have to be a box!

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn from the past, the tried-and-true, as you freely become what your gifts and abilities inspire and allow you to be.

It does mean that the choices are yours — choices your CAT makes together and choices each individual Team Member Artist-Athlete makes within the group. Within their CAT each individual can choose to exercise gifts and talents and take on roles that no other group has provided the opportunity for them to do before.

It does mean that this unique combination of gifts of all the Member Artist-Athletes must be set free to become something new, something none of you could be on your own, offering a contribution to our Movement only you can give. As I’ve said, CATS are one of the greatest expressions of freedom of our time.

Climate Action Teams are not cookie-cutter confections stamped out at a factory. You are not robots controlled by your maker. You are not a part of a hive mind controlled by the Collective. You are one of a kind, and your unique contributions cannot be offered by anyone else.

Organic change embodied in CATS may not be as streamlined and efficient in the near term as some cookie-cutter approaches might be. But it makes our Movement more creative, more free, and thus more resilient and robust — and all of this makes us better able to achieve victory — and victory is what being strategic is all about.

This leads us to see that teams are strategic because of all their strengths I have thus far enumerated, all of the ways we embody our Climate Movement characteristics/imperatives/goals. We won’t achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal without our Climate Action Teams, and achieving these things is the essence of our being strategic. So by being themselves CATS are strategic.

A key reason Climate Action Teams are strategic is because they help individuals to be strategic.

As the name says, Climate Action Teams are about action —but not just action for action’s sake to make us feel better, actions to show how “good” and “pure” and “righteous” we are — narcissistic righteousness. Well past time to nip that nonsense in the bud.

In keeping with our Movement Value of success, CATS are about actions that make a difference. As lone individuals, even those connected to organizations through donations or membership, it is quite hard to be consistent and not scattered or episodic with one’s actions, which significantly diminishes one’s effectiveness.

There are many good things CATS can do on their own, especially at their local level, especially within social groups and institutions in which they or their individual Artist-Athletes belong.

Doing only what your CAT can do is strategic, because otherwise it won’t get done.

And just like the Olympics, you and your CAT need to compete on a particular Field of Action where your participation can shine, where you all are perfectly positioned to make a strategic difference.

Super heavyweight wrestlers will do well in their sports, on their teams. But they probably wouldn’t shine in synchronized platform diving or the gymnastic floor exercise.

At the same time, our particular gifts and abilities can be fitted to specific roles within the team, such as goalie, or halfback, or fullback, or forward.

But for our nation to do its best in the Medal count, our best efforts must come together with those of all the other CATS, organizations, coalitions, faith groups, and businesses. This is where CATS can greatly benefit from participating in strategic campaigns devised by organizations and coalitions.

Climate Action Teams, while absolutely vital, can only be strategic enough when they join larger strategic efforts.

Finally, like every individual Climate Movement Artist-Athlete, all CATS must not only find their particular Olympian Field of Action, but must also participate with the Climate Movement as a whole on the two Fields of Action we all share: (1) growing and improving the Climate Movement itself, and; (2) engaging public policymakers to help us achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal. For CATS and the Movement these are at the very center of being strategic.

So let the creative, organic nature of change find its deepest roots in your CAT, but then combine that with larger strategic efforts that keep us on the path to victory as we stay ahead of the climate clock. Only through this combination will Climate Action Teams be strategic enough.

The bottom line is this: for us to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything we must have a plethora of CATS the world over who are being organic and strategic enough.

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This is the first in a two-part Series on batteries, or, more broadly, energy storage. This post, Part One, does two things: (1) contextualizes this conversation in our third Catalytic Source of Transformation, the accelerating rate of technological change or ARTC, and then (2) looks briefly at our current situation with batteries and energy storage. Part Two will look at future possibilities.

ARTC For Climate’s Sake

In the 19th Century in France there arose a slogan, “Art for Art’s Sake,” that was subsequently taken up by American artist James McNeill Whistler and others. It represented the view that art does not have to be reduced to some deeper moral purpose or narrative. Beauty is its own justification. In the early part of the 20th Century a Latin translation was put above the lion’s head in the MGM logo.

But when it comes to ARTC, Climate Movement Artist-Athletes (i.e. everyone in The Climate Movement) cannot go along with a slogan “ARTC for ARTC’s sake” — at least not all ARTC.1

No, we have a moral agenda. We want to make ARTC, our third Catalytic Source of Transformation, work for us as we overcome climate change, to stop bad stuff, set wrong, right, and make things better, to create a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

Our goal: strategic ARTC for climate action. ARTC for humanity’s sake. ARTC for Creation’s sake.

But Is Tech Change Accelerating?

But is tech change actually accelerating? I have briefly made the case for this (and will say more in future posts). To illustrate ARTC, I’m relying on powerful graphic visual representations. One of the most important comes from the work of Ian Morris.

Morris has measured the ability of humans to capture and use energy over time — including calories from food. As can be seen in the above graph showing energy capture from 14,000 BCE to the year 2000 CE, tech change connected with energy capture has not progressed gradually or consistently over time. Over thousands of years it barely budged. In the West it even declined during the Middle Ages. But beginning with the Industrial Revolution it has shot up like a rocket and hasn’t slowed down since.

Fossil fuels have been around as long as homo sapiens have. So why did we suddenly start capturing and releasing the stored fossil energy with the Industrial Revolution?

It is the combination of fossil fuels and tech change that made energy capture, and the economic wealth that went along with it, shoot straight up. Why?

As I have discussed briefly earlier, I believe Nobel prize-winning economic historian Joel Moykr, Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Romer, and others have explained the various pieces of the puzzle.

I’ve combined these pieces and boiled it down to this: ARTC happened and keeps going due to the continual production of useful knowledge generated by what I call the “ARTC-Combo”: (1) specialization; (2) nonrivalry of knowledge, i.e., its endlessly copyable and useable nature, and; (3) market competition.

But now the energy storage source of the Industrial Revolution is killing us and the planet and it’s well past time to switch from this dirty, limited energy storage source to clean renewable forms of energy capture. ARTC-and-fossils haven’t painted a pretty picture when it comes to the environment and human health, and now the climate scourge.

The time of the fossils is over, as is their paring with ARTC. The ARTC-Combo has found ways to divorce ARTC from dirty old fossils and their death dealing.

Not ARTC for fossils’ sake. ARTC for humanity’s sake; ARTC for Creation’s sake.

We are on the cusp of not just an energy transition, but an energy revolution, driven forward by ARTC, the accelerating rate of tech change.

It’s our job as The Climate Movement to ensure that ARTC in this new revolution in energy production, storage, and utilization helps achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal: to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. To achieve this we must have speed and scale of transformation the likes of which the world has never seen — and ARTC plus The Climate Movement, indeed, all of The Catalytic-4, can make that happen.

ARTC & Batteries

One of the ways ARTC is allowing us to capture energy for our use are new approaches to energy storage, particularly batteries.

Like me, the folks at Ember are also adapting the work of Ian Morris. They have created their own graph below showing energy capture, storage, and utilization over time. Employing alliteration with the “F” sound, they break things down into four eras: Foragers, Farmers, Fossils, and Photovoltaics. Just as the Agricultural Revolution, i.e., the move from Foragers to Farmers, brought about a 100-fold increase in energy capture per hectare of land, so the move from fossils to clean energy systems, primarily photovoltaics plus storage, will create another 100-fold leap in useful energy, what they call “energy abundance.”

As a recent Ember report framed it, comparing the Agricultural Revolution with this new one:

The shift to renewables represents an agricultural revolution for energy, moving from searching and extracting scarce fuels to harvesting abundant sunlight in place. Much as granaries and refrigeration transformed food markets, storage will turn electricity from perishable to persistent, unlocking a new era of energy abundance (emphasis added).

Ember calls what’s coming “the electrotech revolution.” They mean that our future will be run on electricity, including the transportation sector.

Right now and for the foreseeable future useful electricity cannot be stored as electrical energy. It must be utilized when it is created. It’s a use-it-or-lose it kinda situation — unless you can find a way to store energy from electricity.

When you do so cheaply and reliably, when you create “silos for sunshine,” in Ember’s phrase, everything changes. But it’s the type of change that humanity has accomplished before. As Ember states:

Renewable electricity may be a new kind of harvest, but the challenge of storing it, and the system-wide shifts it sets in motion, go back to the dawn of agriculture. The technologies may be new, but the dynamics are as old as civilisation.

Energy Storage and the Present

Today, one key way to store electrical energy as chemical energy is with batteries. The most common form are lithium-ion batteries, which turn electrical energy into chemical energy that can be stored until electricity is needed and the chemical energy is turned back into electrical energy.

What’s going on right now is the outgrowth of the continual production of useful knowledge via the ARTC-Combo funneled into learning curves and economies of scale. This process has dramatically but predictably driven down costs. The International Renewable Energy Agency or IRENA reports that

Between 2010 and 2024, the costs of battery storage projects declined 93% … This cost reduction was driven by technological chemistries, advancements materials in battery efficiency improvements, manufacturing scale-up and optimisation, as well as increased market competition (emphasis added).

In other words, ARTC at work.

As their graph shows, as battery prices go down, capacity goes up.

BloombergNEF also has a nice graph below.

As Evelina Stoikou, the head of BNEF’s battery technology team, remarked:

Cut-throat competition [part of the ARTC-combo] is making batteries cheaper every year. This is an important moment for the industry, as record-low battery prices create an opportunity to lower EV costs and accelerate the deployment of grid-scale storage to support renewables integration around the world.

The cheaper current battery storage gets, the more batteries are bought. The more bought, the cheaper it gets. And that’s just with lithium batteries. Even cheaper ones are on the horizon. (See Part Two, forthcoming.)

And where are these batteries being produced? Well, for those of us in the US we can take pride in a highly successful effort by the Biden Administration to boost the domestic battery industry. As Canary Media recently reported:

“For the first time, the United States now has the capacity to supply 100% of domestic energy storage project demand with American-built systems,” said Noah Roberts, executive director of the U.S. Energy Storage Coalition. … ​“That is a fundamental shift from where we were just a year and a half ago, when the majority of battery storage systems were imported.” … The development of U.S. grid-battery manufacturing has happened at a dizzying pace. Roberts called it ​“one of the fastest industrial scale-ups in recent American history (emphasis added).”

This is a clear example of what The Catalytic-4 can do together to create speed and scale.

But we must broaden our horizons here and not be so myopic. Ember and others who are looking at energy storage holistically see a completely different picture — “the batterization of everything,” as Gerard Reid put it — than those who only think about batteries as storage for “dispatchable” electricity created by a utility. In the future, just about any tech that needs energy may come with its own storage, meaning it won’t have to stay tethered to the electric grid.

And where will the energy come from in the first place? From the power of the Sun captured by renewables creating useful energy in the form of electricity. In other words, a climate-friendly energy system.

Our job as The Climate Movement, as Climate Artist-Athletes together in common cause, is to ensure that the speed and scale of this transformation helps us overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. We must channel the power of The Catalytic-4 towards this purpose.

We must make ARTC strategic, which includes making it just. Join us!

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In my introductory post for this Climate Justice subseries I briefly introduced five distinctive aspects of the problem that are connected with climate justice:

1) so-called legacy emissions that become legacy pollution;

2) the systemic aggregate nature of the problem;

3) the simultaneous erasure of margins of climate safety, such as the destructive momentum built up in the oceans;

4) tipping points;

5) the unjust distribution of consequences.

This post covers the fifth and final distinctive aspect.

Discussions of climate justice must keep a strong focus on the unjust distribution of consequences due to the fact that Big Producers of Polluting Products have caused the problem, but the poor, the powerless and less powerful, the vulnerable, the marginalized, and children and subsequent generations, will bear the brunt of the impacts — even though they have done nothing or next to nothing to cause the problem.

The powerful creating conditions where they benefit while the less powerful suffer has been with humanity since our beginnings.

But the scale, longevity, inescapability, and the impersonal nature of this unjust dynamic, all of this synergistically combined, is something new.

The powerful and Big Producers of Polluting Products are literally making the climate around the world unjust — the climate. Injustice is literally baked into our everyday lives. Making the climate where each of us lives unjust has also never happened in human history.

And because their gains from doing this will help shield them from the consequences they have created through the adaptation and resilience they can afford to make, the powerful and Big Producers can get away almost scot-free from climate impacts — at least for a time.

As for the impersonal nature, if, say, poor villagers in a poor country were to wonder who did this to them — who caused the weather to become more extreme, more floods and droughts and heat, more crop failures and devastation of livelihoods, more hunger and starvation, more disease, more stunting of their children that will last their lifetimes, with many of these impacts and more happening synergistically — who could they point to? Who can be hauled into court and held accountable.

Of course, court cases are starting to be filed. To no one’s surprise, the powerful and guilty are pushing their political flacks to issue them a get out of jail free card. Just another Epstein-like and Trump-like effort from “conservatives” & the fossils to escape responsibility and undermine the rule of law through politics. We must not let them.

What about holding them accountable in the court of public opinion? It has been pointing fingers at various actors. But the systemic aggregate nature of the problem makes this a much more complicated determination, than, say, a local industry that was polluting a river.

Finally, the unjust distribution of climate consequences includes the rest of nature, which is utterly powerless to do anything about what we, the human race, are doing to them through the synergistic impact of climate + environmental degradation and species extinction.1

This unjust distribution of consequences may turn out to be the most terrible in human history, which is why our cause is one of the greatest causes for justice ever, and why we must become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world on all of our Olympian Fields of Action.

Where’s the hope? We are the hope! Join us!

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Climate Actions Teams or CATS are vital to helping us be dynamic enough, our fourth Movement characteristic/imperative/goal, which involves a forward-driving tension created by the relationships between the tried-and-true, discipline, and two of our other Movement Values, freedom, and creativity.

As for tried-and-true, there is tons of information available about small group dynamics in general and what makes them work best. There are all kinds of lessons from faith traditions, the Civil Rights Movement, and other social change movements, and from more recent experiences utilizing social media and various Apps. We must not hesitate to tap into the tried-and-true.

CATS must have discipline to make our contribution. We won’t become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world without discipline. We must come together regularly. We must remain true to our vision, our Movement Values, our Major Goal. We must be trustworthy and do what we say. We must keep the faith and finish the challenge. We cannot do any of this without discipline, both as individuals on the team and the team as a whole.

As I said in an earlier post, Climate Action Teams are one of the greatest expressions of freedom in history. We are born with permission to be in one. But we must choose to be a part of one. We must choose to stay in one. We must choose to give ourselves fully. We must choose to participate in the actions of the CAT. We must choose to struggle together towards justice and the fullness of freedom as we make hope happen and our future come faster.

Each CAT is effectively a blank slate and a free state, a place where the organic nature of successful movements can really thrive — messy, non-linear change that simultaneously results in more resilient and creative results. As Artist-Athlete-Members we are free to choose how to be a team. No one has the authority to tell us what to do. We can model ourselves on other CATS, we can take counsel from the wisdom of the past.

But those are choices, not requirements. We can, if we so choose, chart our own course.

As individual Members, we are free to create our own role on the CAT based on our gifts and abilities and the feedback and advice of our Teammates, or from mentors, friends, or Artist-Athletes from outside our group. Creating our own role is quite different than other social forms like organizations, where roles are already fairly prescribed.

But we must never lose sight of the fact that all of these choices are the means to freedom; they are not the fullness of freedom.

Freedom is not doing whatever the hell we want. Freedom is choosing rightly to create a better world, which only arrives when everyone is free to be who they were created to be and exercises their freedom to become so. This means a world where justice reigns, a justice that comes from love. Love is the ultimate power-source of both freedom and justice. And Climate Action Teams are the most natural place in the Climate Movement where we can choose to say the L-word and let love grow, let love out, let its power be made manifest in our actions to stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better, actions to create a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

Again, part of our freedom is the freedom to do things differently than was done in the past. We must learn from the past and benefit from the tried-and-true. But we must also let our Movement Values of wisdom, pragmatism, and creativity help us see that past lessons may not fit present realities. They may need to be adapted, or new approaches may be needed. We must have the discipline to stay true to achieving our vision, purpose, and Major Goal even if that means doing things differently, even if it means transforming or even abandoning long cherished and comfortable traditions and approaches. Needed change takes discipline, a discipline driven by love.

This is why discipline, freedom, wisdom, pragmatism, and creativity must all work together. And when they do CATS can produce both organic and strategic change (a topic I will discuss more fully in our next post in this CATS Subseries).

We can be quite creative with CATS because each one is new or relatively new. Again, this is different than, say, being a professional in an organization. When folks are in professional mode, it’s hard to think outside the box because they’ve been trained to work within the box; in some cases, they’ve made the box!

But in the Climate Movement we must not be beholden to the boxes of old if they no longer quite fit. As the need arises, as creativity inspires, we must create new and bigger boxes, or get rid of the box altogether as we form a circle! We must let organic change enjoy its full flowering. In Climate Action Teams this will be much easier to do.

(BTW, for all those working in climate organizations and campaigns, environment and conservation organizations, and other organizations where climate is your focus, I would urge you to consider being a part of a CAT where you can be and do things you may not be able to do in your job. It’s also where you can do things differently, or be pushed out of your comfort zone by your CATmates.)

And yet, as much as we need creativity, as much as we honor and benefit from the organic, we also want to be efficient and effective and achieve our Movement Value of success, i.e., we want to be strategic, which gets us back employing wisdom and pragmatism as we look to the tried-and-true for ways that will minimize or eliminate floundering around — because we are on the climate clock and we don’t have time to waste.

Time to become a part of something greater than yourself. Time to create or join a CAT and be the driving force in creating the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world as we make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful and our just future come faster. Join us!

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MAGA Is For Solar Competing Fair and Square Without Any Help From Taxpayers

They aren’t doing it for the climate. Don’t even mention the word.

They don’t like for clean energy to be given incentives, and they especially don’t like anything they might call “mandates.” They want clean energy to compete in the “free” market on their own two feet fair and square without any help from the pockets of taxpayers.

Guess what? Now that profits and price are in clean energy’s favor, now that others have done the heavy lifting to make it so, now that the Trump Administration’s stupid attacks on clean energy, as well as growing demand for energy — including from AI and data centers — are driving up prices and electricity bills, MAGA and other conservatives have seen the light.

And what is the light that has dawned? The light bulb that has finally lit up? It’s this. In most cases, clean energy and battery storage are the cheapest and fastest way to create more electricity and lower prices.

Never mind that it has never been fair and square

Ok, before proceeding, I need to blow off some steam.

Never mind that we’ve never had a “free” market in energy. Never mind that in the US the fossils have been provided over a century’s worth of corporate welfare. Never mind that in the transportation sector oil has been a state-supported monopoly. Never mind that many utilities in the US, state-sanctioned monopolies, have opposed and resisted solar and wind for decades to keep their old, polluting coal-burning power plants going. Never mind that the economic, political, and monopolistic power of the fossils, the likes of which no industry in the history of the world has had, has been mercilessly used to beat up on “the little guy” and suppress the underdog clean energy industry.

Never mind that the fight has never been fair and square, or that there’s never been a level playing field, or that the thumb of government has been on the scale of the dirty fossils for over a century.

Never mind that MAGA et al. probably weren’t in support of the decades of work by creators and producers — R&D, commercialization, etc — to bring clean tech to where it is today, cheap and fast, so we can benefit from it. Never mind that most of MAGA & Co have been, “moochers” and free-riders in this regard.

Seriously, never mind all that, not to mention climate change and air and water pollution and toxic waste — and that most of these costs aren’t included in the current price for the dirty fossils, which if they were, would probably put most of them out of business pretty quick.

Never mind that in their “free” market fantasy, price gives “rational consumers” all the info they need to make their decisions — except, of course, the info about the cost of the gunk that can harm their kid’s health and kill people and create the most dangerous threat humanity faces in this century and beyond.

For the moment, now that my steam has been blown, never mind all that stuff.

Our Value of Pragmatism Says Work With Them

Why never mind all the stuff we really care about, and some they claim to care about?

Because our Climate Movement Value of pragmatism, guided by our other Movement Values like wisdom, justice, and success, says we should take whatever openings we find to work with others to reduce climate pollution, all things being equal. If that means working with MAGA and the Trump Administration, we should do it. (I had to choke that last part out about Trump & Co, let me tell you.)

Solar & Enhanced Geothermal: Here’s What’s Going On

Solar

Now that the GOP has taken away those “unfair” incentives for solar to address a climate crisis they don’t believe in, solar is looking better to many Republicans.

As Politico reported, conservative political strategist and message maven Kellyanne Conway‘s polling firm recently found promising results in five states that voted for Trump in 2024 — Texas, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and Indiana. Their polling showed that:

three-quarters of Trump voters agreed “that solar energy should be used in the US to strengthen and increase” the domestic energy supply, with 62 percent of Trump voters holding a favorable view of solar energy.

In another poll in Texas from a different pollster with similar results taken a year ago, 64% of Republicans had a favorable view of clean energy and 81% supported a “free-market” approach to clean energy as opposed to “mandates” at 18%.

Politico’s reporting highlights MAGA wants cheap electricity now, and solar fits the bill:

Heather Reams, CEO of conservative energy group Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, said consumers are focused on their rising power bills — and pressing policy makers for answers now.

“Not, ‘What nuclear reactor are you going to build for me 15 years from now?’ What are you going to do for me today?,” she said. “That’s where solar has its hand up, saying, ‘We’re ready to go right now.’”

Political/policy groups are starting to form to push clean energy. For example, there’s a new outfit that began in Virginia called “Energy Right,” i.e. done right by the right, funded “by industry and philanthropists” according to the Washington Post. It’s headed up by Skyler Zunk, who before this worked on conservative political campaigns.

Here’s Energy Right’s initial pitch on their website:

As America develops renewable energy across the rural landscape, we stand for energy done the right way — elevating our communities to the best possible position for the long term. Take control of your community’s energy future and join our movement to see clean energy done the right way.

Look, they’re a movement!

As their Mission Statement puts it:

Energy Right is a trusted conservative voice and resource for informed decision-making on responsible clean energy development that drives local economic growth and prosperity.

Some prominent influencers also are starting to get in on the act, such as Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie Miller.

All told, there is some MAGA recalibration going on concerning solar. We should take advantage of it.

Enhanced Geothermal

Another area ripe for collaboration, or at least pulling in the right direction, is what is called enhanced geothermal. Whereas Congressional Republicans and the Trump Administration have tried to kill just about anything related to solar and wind — R&D, tax credits, other incentives, etc — this is a new form of clean energy that they support. Dems like it too.

Support for enhanced geothermal spans the political gamut. Everyone from DOE Secretary Chris Wright to AOC are involved in trying to move enhanced geothermal forward.

But why the Republican interest?

Let me back up a second. For us to be able to use electricity to power stuff it must be created. Most power plants in the world right now — coal and nukes — create electricity by boiling water, and the steam is used to turn a turbine that creates the electricity. So if you have heat to boil water, you can create electricity.

The interior of the Earth has lots of heat. What is called “standard geothermal” exists where hot water reservoirs are located fairly close to the surface. However, such sites are very limited.

“Enhanced geothermal” uses new tech and procedures to create new hot water reservoirs.

In the US, estimates from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory or NREL suggest that there is 90GW of economical capacity, enough to power over 65 million homes by 2050.

Furthermore, this is what is called “baseload” power, or power that is available all the time, not contingent on the Sun or the wind or sufficient water in the case of hydro power.

To sum up: it is zero-emissions economical baseload power.

So why do Republicans like it, given that it is a form of clean energy? Here’s why. The tech and the know-how to do the drilling come from the oil and gas industry.

Cha-ching, bata-boom. It’s fracking for heat.

Well, if it is done safely and sustainably, I say more power to them — and the rest of us!

Saying Yes to Common Ground

So even in the most polarized political atmosphere of our lifetimes we can find common ground around (1) more solar right now, and (2) working today to ensure that we fulfill enhanced geothermal’s promise in the future.

In other words, if it is helpful and not hurtful, we should go for it.

One pragmatic strategic caveat: for many of these folks, to be branded with the idea that they are working with “The Climate Movement” could be the kiss of death. So some of us who are a part of The Climate Movement can work with them while wearing other hats, or no hat at all. In other situations we don’t have to join hands and work together at all even as we are pulling in the same direction. They show up on one side, we show up on the other, but both in support of solar and enhanced geothermal.

There will probably be a time in the future where we part ways with those we find we can work with today. That’s fine. But today, if we can agree on ways to employ clean energy, including with MAGA and the Trump Administration, we should take it.

This doesn’t mean we back off one iota from calling out all of the terrible things the Trump Administration is doing elsewhere.

Let our Movement Values of pragmatism, informed by wisdom’s discernment and our striving for justice and success, guide us as we create a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

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Introduction

In previous posts of this Climate Justice Subseries I have covered the first three distinctive aspects of climate justice: #1) legacy emissions and legacy pollution and #2) the systemic aggregate nature of the problem in post 8.1, and; #3) erasure of margins of climate safety in post 8.2.

Now it’s time to discuss tipping points, the fourth distinctive aspect of Climate Justice.

Perhaps the most worrisome consequences of climate change are when tipping points in natural systems are exceeded, leading to the collapse of such systems. The ones closest to tipping are pictured in the map above.

The combination of major climate and environmental tipping points — e.g. climate impacts combined with habitat destruction and environmental degradation — have the awful potential of becoming the greatest injustice ever perpetrated on the future.

According to the world’s leading scholars on this issue, a tipping point is reached when a “change in part of a system becomes self-perpetuating beyond a threshold, leading to substantial, widespread, frequently abrupt and often irreversible impact”.1

Could Come Faster

These tipping points could come faster than scientists have been expecting. That’s because global warming is happening faster than many thought. As I wrote in the previous post in this Subseries:

Climate pollution continues to rise, and a just published study in one of the most respected journals suggests a significant temperature increase since 2015 — the year the international climate talks that took place in Paris affirmed the 1.5C target. At the present rate we will exceed 1.5 by 2030.¹

Identified Tipping Points

So far, more than 25 tipping points have been identified.

Tipping points include:

• Warm-water Coral Reefs (see areas labeled “A” in map at top). We’re already there: “warm water coral reefs are crossing their thermal tipping point and experiencing unprecedented dieback, impairing the livelihoods of hundreds of millions who depend on them.”

• The Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. We are close to the point where their melting becomes unstoppable, which will produce two meters of sea level rise by 2100, exposing 480 million people to flooding. It won’t stop there. All told, Greenland’s ice sheet would produce 7 meters. If all the Antarctic ice sheets were to melt they would produce 58 meters.

• The death of the Amazon rainforest. This would release a great deal of CO2, further accelerating climate change, and wipe out untold species. Some experts believe we are close the point where death becomes inevitable.

• Arctic permafrost thaw, which is already releasing both methane (a potent Greenhouse Gas) and carbon. (See areas labeled “D”, in map above.) The world’s permafrost contains nearly double the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere, and four times more carbon than we have emitted since the Industrial Revolution.

• The shutting down of a major system of ocean currents called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). This would, among other things, wreak havoc on agriculture, severely disrupting rainfall patterns, potentially leading to massive famine and starvation. A recent study suggests that a shutdown of AMOC could occur around mid-century, or as early as now and as late as 2095; any of these would be sooner than previous research has suggested. As a leading expert puts it: “A full AMOC collapse would be a massive, planetary-scale disaster.”2

Catastrophic Consequences We Must Avoid at All Costs

Natural tipping points will, in turn, lead to political and social tipping points, stressing our human systems and institutions to their breaking points, leading to instability, chaos, conflicts, wars, and collapse. Past civilizations have disintegrated due to climate change, but this would be on a scale never before seen.

Such tipping points would also lead to the collapse of numerous ecosystems and the extinction of many species, which would in turn have catastrophic consequences for humanity.3

Avoiding major tipping points is a key driver for why we are striving to keep warming to 1.5C with minimal overshoot that is quickly brought down to a level natural for our time.

Before going further, however, I must make a vital point. A lot of harm, destruction, suffering, and death can happen before major tipping points are reached. We are already experiencing such harm. Tipping points aren’t necessary to make climate impacts a justice issue. We don’t need to reach tipping points to justify the need for the three actions of justice: stopping bad stuff, setting wrong right, and making things better. They aren’t necessary to justify our vision, purpose, and Major Goal, to justify the need for the Climate Movement to become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world. We don’t need tipping points to spur us to do everything we should be doing, everything our other Movement Values of love, beauty, freedom, creativity, wisdom, pragmatism, non-violence, sustainability, and success are calling us to do.

That said, major tipping points will make consequences exponentially worse. They can create so much destructive change that adaptation and resilience will be blown away. Tipping points are a profound violation of the Better Future Covenant and make a mockery of sustainability. They are the opposite of hope.

If combined, major tipping points in large natural and human systems have the potential to transform the planet into something never seen before by human civilization. Humanity will survive, but they will curse our memory for perpetuating what could become the greatest injustice ever.

Catastrophe Is Not Inevitable; Making Hope Happen Is the Answer

This is not inevitable. It won’t happen if we all play our part together.

But we must face the fact that it is possible, and the mere specter does harm to our wellbeing. Even so we must face the reality of this possibility.

We don’t find hope in denying reality — we find hope in facing it together.

To extinguish this specter we must seize all of the hope available to us: we must become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world; we must become CATS; we must make hope happen by ensuring the other three Catalytic Sources of Transformation achieve their potential; on all of our Olympian Fields of Action we must make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful, and our future come faster.

We must. We can. We will.

Join us!

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CATS Can Make Us Passionate

Climate Action Teams or CATS not only are essential to helping The Climate Movement become big and broad and active enough. They are also vital to helping the Climate Movement achieve our second characteristic/imperative/goal, being passionate enough.

CATS are places where you have permission to be passionate; even more so, where you need to be passionate. CATS need to be places where you can let your passion out or see the passion of others and experience your own, where you can touch and tap into the deep places that sustain your passion. Passion helps you to be your fullest self, to be fully alive by faithfully living in and living out your values. Climate Action Teams are where you can let your passion and those of your teammates motivate you and spur you to consistent bold action.

Our CATS provide us the relational connection we need to play our part in overcoming climate change while creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. And a vital part of this relational connectedness is passion.

Finally, being a part of a Climate Action Team can help prevent our moral passion from devolving into arrogant self-righteousness or, even worse, prophetic narcissism.

Ours is the greatest moral cause of our time; our Major Goal is profoundly ambitious, even audacious; our Movement will be the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world; our cause is just — deeply so.

But all of this does not make us morally superior. In fact, to really own all of this is to become chastened in the face of the challenge, in the recognition of our complete and total inability as individuals to do anything about the climate crisis on our own; becoming a part of this great worldwide movement should humble us to our very depths.

We achieve greatness through humility. It is one of the keys to our attaining greatness together.

CATS Can Make Us Deep

CATS help us to be deep enough, our third characteristic/imperative/goal.

Only with depth of commitment will we get ourselves out of this mess. It is the L-word and our other Movement Values that will provide the depth we need. And it is in our CATS where we can say these words out loud, where we can intentionally tap into and claim their power.

As CATS we are together because of who and what we love, and love is the heart from which justice springs.

• We are together because we are a moral movement, because we strive for justice: to stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better.

• We are together because we affirm the Better Future Covenant, that we are to make and leave a better world for today’s children and subsequent generations.

• We are together to name who we are fighting for because we love them.

• We are together to create a safe and supporting place to become what we were meant to be, to play our part in the greatest moral cause of our time, to make a difference and create a better world, to love and be loved.

• We are together to make hope happen and our future come faster, all out of love.

Now, not to scare anyone off and leave the wrong impression, as I said in an earlier post about the Movement as a whole, Climate Action Teams will not be goopy all the time, continuously emoting, sitting in a circle sharing our feelings. Action-types like me will be running for the exits.

But just as athletic teams are powered and motivated by their emotions and feelings even as they simultaneously keep their wits about them while they implement their game plan, so must we strive for such a game-winning balance, playing it cool as we take the winning shot and jumping for joy as it swooshes through the net.

Love isn’t just feelings, or even the deeper emotional component of love. Love is action. Love is also a wellspring for our humility. Love is doing what’s best for who and what you love. From deep within yourself love takes you out of yourself to nurture, protect, and defend your beloved. That is the essence of love, and it is more than deep enough to see us through. Join us!

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Finally! In the recent State of the Union (SOTU) Mr. Trump said something we both agree on! I’m starting to see Mr. Trump in a whole new light.

With a little creative editing, sorta like with Trump and the Epstein Files, our views now completely align. I just borrowed Mr. Trump’s Sharpie — you know, the one he uses to redraw hurricane forecasts — and made his comments even greater.

You won’t believe how incredibly great, how hugely spectacular, how bigly stupendous, how fantastically orgasmic this never-before seen both new and improved statement truly is. It has so much truthiness in it, it’s beyond truth. Seriously. Very seriously. I mean it.

There just might be something to this “alternative facts” approach to reality. I mean, it can be really powerful, even liberating. Time to wake up! The truth is a prison.

So let’s take this alternative facts Sharpie drawn approach for a spin.

Ok, back to the SOTU. Reports are that Mr. Trump didn’t talk about climate change in his State of the Union speech, the longest in history.

Terribly and profoundly WRONG!

As you can see from the transcript above, the one improved and authorized by me, he most certainly did. Here’s my corrected, new and improved version:

What a difference a president makes. … now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world, the hottest. It’s getting bigger and bigger and stronger [climate change, obviously] . Nobody can believe what they’re watching … because I kept my promise to drill baby drill.

Now in my new and improved version Mr. Trump might have stretched the truth a little when he proudly proclaimed that the US is the hottest country. Ok, so there’s a little poetic license here. No harm, now foul.

The US may not be the hottest, but we certainly must give Mr. Trump credit for making the US — and, hey, the entire globe, come on, now — hotter. And, of course, sexier. And climate change bigger and stronger. Well that just goes along with Mr. Trump’s entire program, making things bigger and stronger. Come on!

But the lying Democrats, the lamestream media, the liberal climate hoax green scam purveyors, never want to give Mr. Trump credit for anything.

Oh, hold it, wait a minute. Seems like they do want to give Mr. Trump credit for making the world hotter and climate bigger and stronger. Hmmm …

But of course all of the lunatics with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) keep lying about Mr. Trump’s record with, you know, the truth, like how household electricity bills are up 13% since Mr. Trump took office. (Are we supposed to take US Energy and Information Administration’s word for it? Geez.)

And, of course, all these folks with TDS never smile. Stop trying to confuse us with the facts, you non-smilers!

They try to smear Mr. Trump with the truth by pointing out he has done everything he can to cancel clean energy projects that would have made electricity even cheaper.

The result?

• 173,000 good paying clean energy jobs lost or delayed.

• $61 billion in lost or delayed private investment.

• 354 projects canceled, delayed, or laying off staff.

• 14 million homes that could have been powered by this lost energy capacity.

They even point out that Mr. Trump’s and the Republican’s “Big Beautiful Bill” removed cheaper, cleaner power sources from our electricity supply while giving corporate welfare tax breaks to the fossil industry.

All these TDS people want to do is make Mr. Trump look bad by smearing him with the truth about his record. It’s sad, really. So sad.

These TDS losers have forgotten the lesson we learned in the 19th Century, that pollution equals progress. Mr. Trump’s war against clean energy and his propping up dying fossils with taxpayer money is simply another way Mr. Trump is taking us backwards so we can Make American Great Again. Why can’t these TDSers see the alternative truth? Why can’t they see how much we’re winning because of Mr. Trump?

Some have seen the light, that Trump is Mister Right. That’s why Mr. Trump was recently the proud recipient of “The Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal” award (no joke), to go along with his FIFA Peace Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize medal.

So to Make America Great Again in our Sharpie-drawn alternative-facts Trump World we must Make America Dirty Again. MAGA = MADA. MAGA is absolutely mad for MADA! That’s why Trump’s EPA has weakened air pollution regulations for mercury and other pollutants that harm kids and kill people. That’s why Trump’s Department of Energy — hereafter to be known as Trump’s Dirty Old Energy or TDOE — has forced dirty coal power plants about to retire to stay open, bragging about it in a TDOE Fact Sheet on “Beautiful Clean Coal.”

Winning, so much winning! As Mr. Trump said in his SOTU: “We’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it anymore.”

So for all you TDS sufferers out there, time to get MADA. Time to fall in line with TDOE. Sick of the climate crisis? Sick of hearing yourself whine about pollution? MADA and Sharpie-drawn alternative facts are the cure. So get MADA and feel better. Join MAGA/MADA and revel in all the winning. So much winning we can’t take it anymore.

Once again, as Mr. Trump said in his SOTU, with a creative assist from me — I mean this is so great, it bears repeating — “What a difference a president makes. … now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world, the hottest. It’s getting bigger and bigger and stronger [climate change, obviously] . Nobody can believe what they’re watching … because I kept my promise to drill baby drill.”

Wait a minute …. Reading that again has somehow broken the alternative facts MADA spell! I’m back to sanity! Back to the real truth. Darn. It was so much more fun making sh*t up and lying my ass off.

Now, for all of you TDS sufferers out there like me, especially those driven to TDS by your concern over climate change, misery loves company. So become a part of The Climate Movement so you don’t suffer in silence! Together we can have compassion — which means “to suffer with” — for one another as we deal with our climate-induced TDS. Together we are a climate-induced TDS support group that helps one another admit we are losers when it comes to MADA-winning. Join us!

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In my last post in this Climate Justice Subseries I covered the first two distinctive aspects that climate justice must take into account: (1) legacy emissions and legacy pollution, and (2) the systemic aggregate nature of the problem.

This post is about the third distinctive aspect: the simultaneous erasure of margins of climate safety, such as the destructive momentum built up in the oceans.

The world is not doing well when it comes to overcoming climate change. Climate pollution continues to rise, and a just published study in one of the most respected journals suggests a significant temperature increase since 2015 — the year the international climate talks that took place in Paris affirmed the 1.5C target. At the present rate we will exceed 1.5 by 2030.1

Sobering.

Even more sobering is the fact that right now things would be much worse if we didn’t have margins of safety built into many natural systems. Whenever we increase risk, such as the increasing risk of extreme weather events, as we do with legacy emissions combined with current climate pollution, we erase natural margins of safety.

The erasure of margins of safety is especially true of the oceans, which have actually been keeping more dangerous and destructive terrestrial or land-based climate impacts at bay. They have been absorbing 90% of the heat from global warming, keeping the land much cooler than it would be, and are currently absorbing 30% of our CO2 emissions. Sadly, both are not without cost, and both have limits.

The oceans have been absorbing blows, protecting us from climate consequences, which has allowed many of us to be blithely unaware, shielding us from facing what we have wrought.

Concerning heat, as one scientist put it, “Every year about 134 million atomic bombs of heat is being trapped by the ocean. It has kept global temperatures down and kept the land livable but we have to realise that energy hasn’t gone.”

This warming is in the oceans themselves, which could have a dramatic impact on their webs of life, making survival for species at the top of the food chain much harder. Hot waters are killing plants and choral reefs where many species live. Lots of them are leaving the heated up waters of the tropics and heading towards the poles, while also trying to live further down where it is cooler, but also where there is less oxygen. In landlocked bodies of water like the Mediterranean the latter is the only option.

These heated up waters are already starting to have consequences for humanity: sea level rise due to thermal expansion; coastal inundation; intensified hurricanes; more extreme weather on land in the form of floods and droughts, and; bleached corals. All of this will lead to forced migration, food insecurity, and political and social instability, which will fall most heavily on the innocent and powerless.

Prof. Matthew England sums it up: “By absorbing all this heat, the ocean lulls people into a false sense of security that climate change is progressing slowly. … The oceans have stored the problem. But it’s coming back to bite us.”

There are also huge long-term consequences. We have already stored so much heat in the oceans that it will take hundreds of years to bring it back down. So even as our children and subsequent generations do their best to stop and even reverse global warming, it will take generations before this excess ocean heat is dealt with and planetary warming is brought back to where it should be.

And so not only are we bequeathing legacy emissions and legacy pollution, we are also bequeathing legacy ocean warming. But unlike the former, where natural climate solutions and direct air capture can suck up some of the legacy emissions, there is no known natural or technological solution for all of this ocean heat — at least none that I am aware of.

As for the cost of CO2 absorption, the creatures of the oceans are already paying the price due to the oceans becoming more acidic. The minerals used by some sea creatures to build their shells and skeletal structures — oysters, lobsters, clams, coral reefs — are being dissolved.

Without this 30% CO2 absorption buffer provided by the oceans we would have already crossed various tipping points by now. At some point, however, this margin of safety will be spent and the oceans will begin to lose their ability to absorb CO2, leading to greater warming. A recent study suggests this will happen around the turn of the century — one more thing we are taking from our children and their children.

It goes without saying that these things we are doing to the oceans are a profound violation of the Better Future Covenant and all of our Movement Values. They are another reason why we must become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in history, making the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful as we make our future come faster. This will all happen through The Catalytic-4 working together.

All of us in the Climate Movement are about stopping the bad stuff that is erasing these natural margins of climate safety.

But to set wrong right and make things better, well some of us must help the rest of us discover what we must do. It could just be that this is your Olympian Field of Action!

Where’s the hope? We’re the hope! Join us!

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Climate Action Teams or CATS will be vital to making the Climate Movement big and broad and active enough, our first characteristic/imperative/goal.

Big and Broad Enough

Social science research tells us that 3.5% of a population can create social change. But to create the needed speed and scale of change, by 2030 we’re going to need more:

• 5% of the world’s population, or

• 400 million worldwide.

This means we need to get big fast to match the scale and speed of the challenge and make our future come faster.

We are on the kairos-climate-clock. The time is now to grow, grow, grow!

Besides your own particular Olympian Fields of Action, there are two Fields of Action on which all Climate Movement Artist-Athletes must participate for us to achieve our Major Goal: (1) growing and improving the Climate Movement itself, and; (2) public policy engagement, where we advocate for climate action, ensure implementation, and defend against attacks.

CATS and Our Top Priority

But right now and for the foreseeable future it is growing and improving the Climate Movement that should be seen as the top priority for all of us.

Why? Well, first, because it hasn’t been — at least based on my knowledge of the US context. It ain’t gotten enough love, or respect. Truth is, “grassroots organizing,” in the US, especially by most mainstream environmental organizations, isn’t taken as seriously as policy advocacy; the latter is the grown-up’s table.

For those of us in the US, and other places like us in this regard, it’s well past time to see growing the Movement for what it is: indispensably strategic.

This leads to my second point: growing and improving the Climate Movement should be seen as our top priority because doing so makes possible the big and widespread changes we are trying to achieve via public policy and through businesses.

CATS will play a major role in having The Catalytic-4 work together to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. As we in The Climate Movement become bigger and broader, the more others will join us or become Climate Action Supporters ready to push government and business leaders to be bold, including making ARTC strategic. And the bigger and broader CATS help The Climate Movement and Climate Action Supporters to be together, the greater will be our ability to create the speed and scale of change necessary and our future come faster. So making both bigger and broader are top priorities, and CATS will help us to be Artist-Athletes on the Growing-the-Movement Field of Action so we can also effectively perform on the Public-Policy-Field-of-Action.

Third, because we are light years away from achieving the goal of 5% of the population becoming Climate Movement Artist-Athletes by 2030.

Let’s take the United States. According to the US Census Bureau, by 2030 the US population will be about 355 million. Children up to five years old are projected to be 24.3 million. So let’s subtract these children from our available population to be in The Climate Movement. That leaves us with 330.7 million. Let’s round down to 330 million.

Our 5% goal would have our movement made up of 16.5 million, rounded down to 16 million.

So, 16 million in the US by 2030.

Those of us in the US have a lot of work to do!

Organizations can help with starting teams and coaching and resourcing teams. But they just won’t be able to start enough.

Given that freedom, one of our 10 Movement Values, is fundamental to a growing cause, Climate Movement Artist-Athletes must be free to start CATS of their own volition and encouraged to do so.

Now remember, not all Artist-Athletes from around the world will become part of a Climate Action Team. But we need many to do so because CATS will play a vital role in growing the Movement towards our goals of 5% or 400 million by 2030 and 10% by 2040.

The numbers needed mean we simply can’t start CATS fast enough, which dovetails nicely with our Movement Value of freedom.

Climate Action Teams are one of the greatest expressions of freedom of our time. Everyone on the planet can start or join a CAT.

You don’t need anyone’s permission. You were born with permission! It is part of your birthright as a human being.

Even in situations where governments or societies or corporate culture or any other form of social or political coercion works against Climate Action Teams, freedom still reigns to start a CAT, however covert or countercultural you must be. Because of the growing threats of authoritarianism towards democracies and the rule of law and our ability to influence our governments, CATS are a bulwark of freedom.

Every Climate Movement Artist-Athlete needs to seriously consider joining or creating a Climate Action Team, ideally of 5-10 members. Such CATS can be organized based on many factors, but usually they will revolve around things CAT members have in common, including any combination thereof, such as:

§ School

§ Job/profession

§ Organizational affiliation/membership

§ Faith community

§ Where you live

§ Shared interests

§ Age

Your Team could be — and this is coming right out of my imagination —

• the Tulsa Gardners Climate Action Team #4,

• the Shanghai Swifties For Climate Action #26,

• the Pawtucket Plumbers For Climate Action,

• the University of Toronto’s Matter Lab Climate Action Team,

• the Bulawayo Youth Climate Action Team #2,

• the Glasgow Geezers for Climate Action,

• the Canberra Square Dancers for Climate Action,

• Amazon Employees in Seattle Team #16,

• the K-pop Climate Action Team #98, or

• Barrett Elementary’s Climate Action Team #3.

But, please, don’t let the lists above impede your creativity in forming your own CAT! They are offered to spark your imagination. Come up with your own CATS “Dream Team,” and then make it a reality!

Meeting in person is always best but is in no way a requirement. Meeting online is just fine, as long as everyone can interact with everyone else in real time on a regular basis. You can’t become a team otherwise. You won’t have the cohesion you need. You won’t know what roles each of you will play at particular times. You won’t know your other Teammates well enough to recognize their gifts and abilities and call them forward.

Staying connected in all the other ways we have at our disposal, such as social media or Apps is also encouraged. But it cannot replace being together in real time.1

Just like Olympic teams, each member of a CAT has a position or role to play; each has responsibilities. The coach can’t do it all, nor can the star player. A CAT isn’t a team without each player’s active preparation and participation.

Finally, we must be broad enough so that policymakers and the populace at large perceive us to be representative of the society as a whole, a vibrant cross-section working together, another way we ensure that we can’t be suppressed, missed, or ignored.

Active Enough

Climate Action Teams are essential for making the Climate Movement not just big and broad enough, but also active enough. Why? Again we need to be all three so our story is told in a way that can’t be suppressed, missed, or ignored. Then The Climate Movement and Climate Action Supporters can push their societies to make changes at the speed and scale necessary.

So what does active enough mean?

It means we must have a constant, continual stream of visible actions taking place in every country around the world.

Why? The rest of society must be reminded constantly of the need for climate action at the speed and scale required because we are in kairos-climate time. We must achieve message saturation and values engagement within our societies.

This means that leaders and the average person are reminded regularly of the necessity of bold climate action now, and that everyone has a role to play — so much so that this is at the forefront of their hearts and minds and engages their values and connects to what they hold most dear.

So for Climate Action Teams what does being active enough look like in practice? You are free to determine this on your own. My suggestion is for the CAT to participate in an organized activity about once a month. These can be actions the CAT organizes or actions you participate in that are organized by others (e.g. a major rally in a large city).

To achieve message saturation and values engagement, all action events must have a message/values-amplification strategy. It is not enough for your event to be seen and experienced in person by those who are near the event. You must get the word out through the news media and social media.

Even if you aren’t able to generate traditional news coverage or “earned media” you can still have all of your CAT members, and as many of the other participants as possible, communicate your message and values via your social media channels with videos, pictures, audio, and text. Make it CATchy. But it doesn’t have to be purrfect.

In other words, communicate to as many people as you can utilizing as many ways as you can as creatively and effectively as you can to increase support for action, grow our Movement, and support/push action by government leaders.

The bottom line is this: without continual public actions by Climate Action Teams the Climate Movement won’t be big, broad, and active enough. And if we aren’t we won’t achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal. To join together in a CAT is to participate in one of the greatest expressions of freedom of our time.

Ours is a serious endeavor.

But we don’t have to take ourselves so seriously.

So, my friends, let all CATS unite! Let’s be CATchy together! Let’s meow in purrfect harmony!

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Mr. Trump’s illegal war with Iran has demonstrated once again the distorting influence of oil and gas on the world economy and international politics.

Besides terrorism, one of the main ways this war with Iran can do damage internationally is by disrupting the supply of oil and gas going through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for about 20% of worldwide consumption. Major shipping companies have suspended operations until they feel safer.

What about unforeseen economic and political consequences?

Take Taiwan as an example, as illustrated by this NYTimes analysis:

Taiwan imports more than 96 percent of its energy, most of it from the Middle East. About 60 percent of Taiwan’s oil — and about a third of its natural gas — arrives by ship from countries via the Strait of Hormuz.

Any shortage of energy supplies to Taiwan could endanger the global economy, which relies on the island’s manufacturing powerhouses for semiconductors used in smartphones, electric vehicles and artificial intelligence systems. A handful of factories in Taiwan make the vast majority of the world’s advanced computer chips, and they depend on a consistent supply of electricity.

How many of us thought about computer chips and the world economy when we learned about Mr. Trump’s illegal war? Not me.

Given that no one knows when this will end, could it tip economies around the world into recessions?

Oil vs. Us

My articulation of The Climate Movement’s vision, purpose, and Major Goal is that we are working to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

Oil is against all of that.

Just on climate pollution, one scholar notes that:

By supporting their political survival, fossil fuel wealth also creates incentives for autocrats to undermine efforts to reduce emissions. Leaders of authoritarian regimes rich in fossil fuels have consistently avoided, delayed, and outright opposed both national and international climate action.

Climate change is more than enough reason to kick our oil addiction. But there’s so much more. From the perspectives of justice, democracy, the rule of law, equality, and sustainability, oil is a toxic curse.

Oil props up dictators and repressive regimes, leads to civil wars and massive amounts of corruption around the world, and exacerbates both income and gender inequality.

It also leads to underdevelopment. Nigeria is a prime example. It is Africa’s #1 oil exporter. Sadly, that has only made things worse:

despite $583 billion generated from oil exports since independence (NEITI, 2023), its development level remains one of the lowest in the world (UNDP, 2023). The oil curse theory sets three main reasons for this phenomenon: oil revenues trapped the country in a vicious cycle of economic undiversification, inequality and corruption : all of these three ‘symptoms’ undermining its development.

Furthermore, multinational oil giants have more power than most countries and are part of the rampant corruption in low-income, oil-rich countries — not to mention its corrosive political impact in rich countries.

We’re A Great Cause of Freedom

Mr. Trump’s illegal war against Iran simply reminds us of all the ways oil is a toxic curse.

That’s why being a part of The Climate Movement, working together to end climate pollution and overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything, is one of the greatest causes of freedom in human history.

To loosen the toxic grip of oil is to let freedom ring all over the world for every person and every creature that calls the Earth our home.

Join us!

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