ABC 6 On Your Side
by Stephen Loiaconi

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg lectured world leaders Monday on their failure to address the threat of climate change, days after she and others led millions of protesters in a global strike to raise awareness of the issue.

But environmentalists still face an uphill climb to spur the dramatic changes they say are necessary to save the planet from rising temperatures.

“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be standing here,” Thunberg, 16, told representatives from more than 60 countries at the U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York. “I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to me for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

The Swedish teen spoke during an event one U.N. official hyped as a pivotal moment for the global battle against climate change.

“We can use this summit as a slingshot toward further agreements that need to be reached in the climate negotiations, at the end of this year and at the end of 2020,” Rachel Kyte, special representative for sustainable energy, told ABC News.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened the session to advocate for more ambitious commitments from signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement ahead of climate negotiations set for next year. Promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions made four years ago fall far short of what experts say will be required in the decades ahead to avert the most damaging effects of climate change.

“Don’t come to the summit with beautiful speeches,” Guterres said last month. “Come with concrete plans … and strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050.”

Thunberg was even more direct, accusing the world’s governments of betraying future generations by ignoring established science and setting insufficient goals for emissions cuts.

“You say you ‘hear’ us and that you understand the urgency,” she said Monday. “But no matter how sad and angry I am, I don’t want to believe that. Because if you fully understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And I refuse to believe that.”

Thunberg is also one of 16 petitioners in a legal complaint filed Monday with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child alleging Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey failed to curb emissions despite knowing for decades about the risks of climate change.

“The climate crisis is a children’s rights crisis,” said Scott Gilmore, a human rights lawyer at Hausfeld, the law firm representing the petitioners. “The current path of global warming will leave today’s children with an unlivable world.”

Monday’s events followed a weekend of high-profile climate activism with millions of protesters in cities around the world calling for a more aggressive response to climate change. Scientists say humans must limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, and that could require cuts in emissions three to five times larger than current commitments.

The U.N. also held its first Youth Climate Summit Saturday for activists between 18 and 29 years old. Britt Groosman, vice president of global climate at the Environmental Defense Fund, argued the passion of a new generation of leaders like Thunberg could change the climate debate.

“As global leaders, nonprofits and corporations convene for climate talks, there is an inescapable movement underway, fueled by youthful determination to change the course of our future,” Groosman wrote in a blog post.

Experts who study environmental activism say the worldwide protests Friday made a significant statement and called new attention to the cause, but no one protest event is going to shift the views of the public or policymakers about climate change.

“I think it is one pathway that increases public pressure for policy action,” said Max Boykoff, author of “Creative (Climate) Communications” and director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado Boulder. “It certainly isn’t going to be a silver bullet if you will. Rather, it’s one more piece of silver buckshot.” Read more …

by Sam Brasch
CPR News

Photo: Climate change activists perform a “die-in” during Denver City Council. Aug. 5, 2019. Credit: Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite.

Last April, Dave Robinson walked out to the middle of Denver’s busy Speer Boulevard and sat down.

Six other Extinction Rebellion activists joined the Littleton software engineer. Some flew colorful flags with the movement’s circled hourglass logo which symbolizes time running out for the planet and its species. As traffic backed up, other members of the group walked the line of cars to hand out paper mache flowers and to apologize for the inconvenience.

It didn’t take long for police to lift Robinson and his colleagues off the roadway.

“The climate emergency is affecting everyone,” he said. “So yes, we’re inconveniencing people, but these are people we want to reach out to. They are impacted as well.”

Extinction Rebellion — abbreviated XR — first won major headlines last November when thousands occupied bridges across London. A few months later, it parked a pink boat in the middle of one of the city’s busiest intersections. By occupying a number of other high-traffic sites, it managed to bring the British capital to a standstill for over a week.

The movement’s theatrical demonstrations have since crossed the Atlantic.

Demonstrators with the movement glued themselves to the doors of the U.S. Capitol in July. In Colorado, XR brought a new level of confrontational tactics to the state’s long-simmering fight over oil and gas development and climate change. Besides blocking traffic, it has staged “die-ins” at Denver City Council meetings and coughed over testimony before the state’s top oil and gas regulators.

By seizing public attention, the group hopes to force governments to “tell the truth” about climate change. The call is listed first among the movement’s demands. In practice, it means pushing local governments to declare climate change an emergency.

The strategy has seen some success in Colorado. Members of the group say they helped push the City of Boulder and Boulder County to make those kinds of declarations. Fort Collins and Basalt have made similar proclamations.

Beyond a shift in language around climate change, XR activists want net-zero emission by 2025, a far more ambitious goal than even UN scientists called for in the last IPCC report. They also demand citizens assemblies to oversee the transition away from fossil fuels.

Lynn Granger, executive director of the Colorado Petroleum Council, said such calls-to-action aren’t much help as her industry and the state hash out new rules for oil and gas extraction.

“We are all in favor of peaceful protest, but what we really want is to make sure we are achieving is reasonable regulation and having reasonable discussions,” she said.

But Max Boykoff, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, said it’s OK if all of XR demands aren’t “reasonable.” His recent book “Creative (Climate) Communications” discusses the “radical flank theory,” which suggests more radical social movements can help advance more moderate positions.

“When certain groups are more aggressive, it opens up a space within which other groups can move in and shape those conversations,” he said.

Boykoff added that XR appears to push the boundaries of the conversation while stopping short of alarmism. While the group’s rhetoric is scary, he said it still offers concrete responses for individuals and communities.

XR activists also say social science informs their strategies. Many point to the work of Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, who found non-violent movements haven proven much more likely to achieve their goals than violent ones. Her work also notes every successful campaign attracted more than 3.5 percent of a population.

That number has become a crucial threshold for XR. But at least in Colorado, they are nowhere near it.

Robinson guesses there are about 20 hardcore organizers in the Denver and Boulder XR chapters. In a pinch, he estimates they can get about 60 people onto the streets.

The next few days will be a test of XR’s support in the U.S. This Friday, students plan to kick off a week of climate actions with strikes in major cities. On the following Monday, XR hopes to join other groups in an attempt to shut down Washington D.C.

Robinson said events in Denver are planned for the same day, but was cagey about specifics. Online postings offer some strong hints, though. The group plans a pair of events at a park off of Speer Boulevard. One is labeled Morning Rush Hour; the other Afternoon Rush Hour.

Lisa Widdekind plans to take part. The Boulder emergency management coordinator said she tried more traditional methods of climate activism, like working for nonprofits and supporting anti-hydraulic fracturing ballot initiatives. She decided to join XR after growing frustrated with a lack of movement on climate change. 

“The best thing you can do for climate depression and anxiety is to take action,” she said. 

Her depression spiked following a conversation with her 22-year-old daughter, Julia DeBelle. Recently, while the two talked in their Boulder apartment, DeBelle told her mom she might not have children because of climate change. 

“I just started sobbing about it,” DeBelle said. “Out of anger and frustration and mourning the loss of everything we don’t get to experience.” 

Widdekind called the moment “devastating.” When asked if her activism helped, she fought back tears to offer an answer. 

“It’s the only thing I know how to do,” she said.

by Max Boykoff
Daily Camera

I have been deeply disturbed by the “Greta bashing” going on. My disappointment has been compounded by the fact that the verbal attacks have overwhelmingly emanated from older adults.

For those not following her more closely, Greta Thunberg is a 16-year old Swedish activist who began demonstrating outside Swedish parliament to raise the need for urgent action on climate change. Her commitment has sparked the Youth Climate Strikes over the past year.

On Aug. 28, the young climate activist just completed her cross-Atlantic trip by sailboat to New York City. She has arrived for the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week, punctuated by two widely anticipated Youth Climate Strikes taking place mid- to late-September.

Climate change is set to feature extensively in the news this month.

“Kids today” has been a common utterance laced with exasperation and disappointment that many of us have likely heard throughout our lives. Commonly disparaging comments about millennials, Generation Y and Z are that they are lazy, delicate, sensitive, fragile, narcissistic, selfish and entitled. These disparaging comments point to assumptions that adults lead the way in work ethic, resilience, altruism and morality.

On climate change, the opposite has been shown to be true. Evidence abounds.

In June, polling data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication showed that younger generations are more likely to view climate change as personally important while they are more willing to take action on climate change than older generations. This is consistent with Gallup polling from last year that found 70% of people ages 18-34 say they worry about climate change, contrasted with 56% of those over age 55.

Moreover, Pew Research Center polling shows that younger conservative voters are confronting climate change in much higher numbers than their conservative elders: Twice as many young Republicans (ages 23-38) than older Republicans (over age 52) say that humans contribute to climate change and effects are being felt now in the United States.

Maybe we can attribute this difference in part to the powerful intoxicant called nostalgia. This often involves a yearning for an idyllic past and romanticized times gone by. But nostalgia is troubling for many reasons. Among them, it looks backward rather than forward. Problematically, nostalgia may also emanate from feelings that “things aren’t what they used to be.” Well, things aren’t what they used to be.

On climate change, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data show that anyone born after December 1984 (currently people up to 34 years old) has not experienced a below average month of global temperatures. Decisions made in the good old days have led us to the present predicament.

I worry that we adults, who got us into this mess, are not doing enough as the kids they have introduced to climate challenges. Adult utterances about “legacies” and “intergenerational” generally ring hollow when the scale of engagement and action pales in comparison to the scale of the ongoing challenge.

With all this in mind, young people have valid reasons for feeling angry, anxious or melancholy about the state of human-environment conditions today. However, many young people are not merely accepting the state of affairs as they are. Many are now creatively expressing visions for different futures. Leaders like Thunberg have been met by other young voices, such as indigenous environmental leader and musician Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, as well as filmmaker Slater Jewell-Kemker, to meet the scale of these climate challenges with commensurate promise and resolve.

Through creative communications, younger generations are expressing their ambitions and concerns about climate change more than ever before. Whether by choice or by necessity, many younger people are both talking the talk and walking the walk.

The Youth Climate Strikes and youth presence at the UN and Climate Week next month and beyond may be one sign that young people are pulling on levers of change available to them: voice through creativity and protest.

U.S. comedian Stephen Colbert has joked, “I don’t trust young people. They’re here to replace us.” In reality, though, going forward using informed, decidedly and constructively optimistic approaches are critical.

Communications approaches that empower youth to make change can be effective, as is listening to their perspectives, minimizing their burdensome worries and amplifying their voices as new knowledge brokers in a contemporary communications environment. Trust in this next generation of leaders and trust in progress in creatively communicating about climate change are vital to effectively tackling this 21st century challenge.

The kids are alright, adults must step up.

Max Boykoff is an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and author of a new book, “Creative (Climate) Communications: Productive Pathways for Science, Policy & Society.”

Climate change is sure to be a big issue in the upcoming election. KOA News discusses this topic with CSTPR’s Dr. Max Boykoff​.

Max Boykoff interviewed on 4 September 2019 Newsy.

In the last decades and especially in the last few years, addressing climate change has become a flagship political issue.

There’s something unique about this election cycle: The focus on addressing climate change is greater than ever. But like climate change itself, this new awareness doesn’t have a single cause. It took time and lots of different influences for the political conversation to get to this point.

Presidential candidates have acknowledged climate change before, but rarely in depth. One Grist analysis of presidential debates shows in 2000, candidates spent less than 15 minutes on climate issues. In both ’04 and ’08, there were roughly five minutes of climate talk. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney didn’t mention it on stage at all in 2012, and it got a little more than five minutes’ time in 2016.

But in two decades, warnings from the world’s climate scientists have become more urgent. The Keeling curve, which measures the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content, has marched steadily higher. And, crucially, news and media outlets have highlighted more climate stories.

Max Boykoff is a director at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, where he studies media’s changing coverage of climate change. 

Boykoff says the media started to put more focus on climate in the late ’80s, just as NASA scientist James Hansen was testifying to Congress on the impacts of global warming. Since then, coverage has only gotten broader and more comprehensive.

“I think that there has been an increasing general sophistication in coverage that we hadn’t seen maybe two decades ago,” Boykoff told Newsy. “Climate change is something that that permeates other critically important issues, from geopolitics to immigration policy to public health and so forth and so on. And so the reporting has now been more distributed across many different parts of any news organization.”

Together, these forces have helped drive a primary race that’s starkly different. Democratic candidates want climate change on center stage. Now they’ll spend hours of airtime on it before they even get to the general election.

And the action they’ve proposed is ambitious and detailed. Prior to dropping out of the presidential race, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee centered his entire campaign around the climate threat. Active candidates still have some of the most thorough climate plans ever floated.

“The [Bernie] Sanders proposal and the [Elizabeth] Warren proposal are the most bold and ambitious, that they come closest just on climate terms alone, to putting together that kind of comprehensive, sustained response that is commensurate with the scale of the challenge,” Boykoff said.

These plans will stand in contrast with president Trump’s environmental views. His administration has loosened environmental regulations, to give fossil energy companies more room to grow. And he’s withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, which the administration has called a “bad deal.” Read more …