5 Climate Memes Worth Sharing
A Round-up of Recent Output from CCT's MemeWorks | ISSUE 20, July 11, 2019
QUICK/READ: This issue is a quick scan if all you want to do is read a meme. All climate memes! Yet being a roundup of recent work by the MemeWorks at Changing Climate Times, they cover some wide-ranging content. Check out the commentary and context of the quotes, too.
Got a climate meme nominee? Add it to comments to this newsletter. Or e-mail douglasjohmartin AT icloud.com | Subscribe to CCT and our new companion podcast at: changingclimatetimes.substack.com. Follow us on Twitter: @TimesClimate
ONE | “We cannot be radical enough”
Acclaimed British broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough has come out blazing in the past year on climate change. A July 9, 2019, New Scientist article captures him in action, speaking recently to a UK committee.
The UK must take radical action to meet its climate change targets, Attenborough told a parliamentary committee. But politicians must carry the public with them because of the high cost of meeting such goals:
“We cannot be radical enough in dealing with these issues,” he told MPs when asked if the UK should bring forward its new target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, as some campaigners have called for. But he said the real issue was what is politically possible.
Attenborough went where many politicians are a-skeered to go. Seriously addressing climate change means seriously changing how we live our modern, greenhouse gas-billowing lifestyles: “Because it costs money in realistic terms, dealing with these problems mean we have to change our lifestyles … The question of how fast we can go is how fast we can carry the electorate with us,” said Attenborough.
Getting to net zero carbon emissions in three decades is “a tough target,” he conceded. Attenborough compared changing morality towards slavery in Britain in the 19th century to changing attitudes on climate change today. “I suspect we are right now in the beginning of a big change.”
Who is leading that change? Certainly not many of the globe’s all-powerful politicians. "Young people are the stimulus bringing that about,” Attenborough said. The movement of school pupils striking over climate change, sparked by Greta Thunberg in Sweden last year, was a beacon of hope, he said:
“The most encouraging thing I see, of course, is that the electorate of tomorrow are making their voices very, very clear.” Turning to an audience of young people in parliament behind him, he said: “It is their world we are playing with. It is their future in our hands.”
TWO | ‘The Power Is Not Yours But Ours’
I love this essay (linked here and below) by Briony Bennett. It does what an essay trying to spark awareness should do: speaking from a place of personal truth. Bennett also speaks truth to power as she invokes a generational icon—Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Pop culture climate change riffs are always welcome in reaching out and waking up new audiences:
Bennett kicks off the essay boldly:
I will be 30 in January. More greenhouse gases have been released into the atmosphere in my lifetime than in the entire 240-year period from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, in 1750, up until my birth. The massive acceleration in fossil-fuel consumption and combustion since 1990 is not my fault—though sometimes it feels that way.
I’ll let you, Dear Reader, explore her Captain Planet riff. It’s worth your time (especially if you were a wannabe-Planeteer). I’ll move on to key points Bennett makes to everyone, including those don’t know Cap’n Planet from Adam.
“Our dependence on fossil fuels and plastic has been constructed and reinforced,” Bennett notes, “by corporate interests and decades of lobbying that thwarted environmental regulation.” You would hardly notice this truth in a lot of climate crisis coverage, with its emphasis on personal action to fix an ill planet:
My news feed is filled with personal lifestyle ‘hacks’ to reduce waste or minimise your environmental footprint, like eating a plant-based diet, taking glass jars and canvas bags with you to the supermarket, choosing to fly less—or never—and walking, cycling or using public transport in lieu of driving. All of these things matter. I have advocated for them, as have others.
Yet these actions, while notable, important, inspiring and role-modeling, can also be a distraction, says Bennett. If we frame the problem as one that individuals can solve, “we ignore the fact that infrastructure, institutions and regulation continue to place real limits on what we can achieve, and work against our best efforts to live sustainably.”
She goes on to list personal actions that are collective in scope. With Bennett’s pardon, I’ll bullet-point them from her essay (which I encourage you to read in its totality as it is spot-on). You can do more than just be a conscientious consumer, Bennett says. (Note: instead of ‘Parliament,’—if you don’t have one—insert ‘Congress’, City Hall,’ ‘Tribal Council’ or a government outpost of your choice):
Vote, protest, join a political party, donate to a political party.
Visit your local member of parliament, make a submission to parliament and convince your friends and family to do the same.
Run for office yourself.
If you cycle to work or have given up meat, then make sure you tell everyone about it.
Write an article.
Call talkback radio.
We need activist shareholders, lawsuits and new policy.
And, finally, it’s meme-worthy time:
We give up our power when we imagine that it is individuals’ responsibility to solve the climate crisis or the plastic crisis. It is a collective and political responsibility. My childhood hero Captain Planet was almost right. The power is not yours but ours.
PS: Changing Climate Times devoted the better part of ISSUE 18 to the substance of Bennett’s essay. That issue, “Is Climate Change Your Fault? Or Mine?”, keyed off Mary Annaise Heglar’s must-read VOX essay: “I WORK IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT. I DON’T CARE IF YOU RECYCLE: Stop obsessing over your environmental ‘sins.’ Fight the oil and gas industry instead.”
THREE | The Game of Pretend
Eric Arthur Blair (a.k.a. George Orwell) was prescient on lots of things ( “Animal Farm,” “1984” and a host of other work). His Wikipedia entry sums up what was important about his work in a concise sentence. As a novelist, essayist, journalist and critic, his work “is characterised by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.”
So, it was interesting to crack open a collection of his reviews and essays recently and find a quote that—to me at least, and I hope to you—speaks from the year 1935 to the climate crisis of 2019:
“Modern man is rather like a bisected wasp which goes on sucking jam and pretends that the loss of its abdomen doesn’t matter.”~George Orwell
It’s certainly not the most delectable of images. But isn’t it the dilemma we face at this very moment? We’ve lost control (or are losing control) of Earth’s climate operating system. And a huge chunk of Earth’s populace either:
Pretends it isn’t happening. Or is oblivious or has been fed diverting lies.
Has been pushed into climate denialism or delay-ism by the overwhelming, soul-numbing reality of the climate crisis.
Knows it is happening. But is having too much fun or making too much money to do anything about it.
Has a job that pays them to deny climate change is happening. (See ‘climate science denial’ on Twitter.)
Pick your sting.
Or see Item 2 above.
FOUR | Who’s the Extremist Here?
The Twitter account of TuxedoMask (@TheLoveBel0w) takes no prisoners. The thread from which the above meme was carved is worth a read, as are his collected commentary threads (pinned, conveniently, at the top of his feed).
Here’s the larger tweet from which the meme above is drawn:
“It's time to stop talking about the cost of climate action and start talking about the cost of climate inaction. Tackling this years ago would've been ideal, and a green new deal is actually moderate. It's allowing global catastrophe just for corporate profits that's extremist.
FIVE | Go Global, Strike Local
I’ve posted this meme above in other issues and frequently in the @TimesClimate feed. I’m continuing to post it to raise awareness of the Global Climate Strike coming to Planet Earth (Where’s Captain Planet when you need him?!) from Sept. 20 to 27, 2019. For info and how to plan local events, visit globalclimatestrike.net
The Friday to Friday event corresponds to the FridaysforFuture movement of climate strikes by young people worldwide. (More at FridaysforFuture.org). As the link notes, the movement had its roots in August 2018, after Greta Thunberg—then a mere 15-years-old—sat in front of the Swedish parliament every schoolday for three weeks, to protest against lack of action on the climate crisis:
She posted what she was doing on Instagram and Twitter and it soon went viral. On the 8th of September, Greta decided to continue striking every Friday until the Swedish policies provided a safe pathway well under 2-degree C, i.e. in line with the Paris agreement. The hashtags #FridaysForFuture and #Climatestrike spread and many students and adults began to protest outside of their parliaments and local city halls all over the world.
PS: One recent Friday, there were about 1,500 strikes in more than 180 separate nations. This is the domino effect of activism in vivid relief—sparked by a lone teen.
PPS: If you’re a visual learner, here’s a video about the planetary strike.
PPPS: The image in the meme comes from a superb series of swirled nature photographs by my brother, David Imbrogno (cowgarage.com ) I’ve been featuring them regularly in this newsletter as you can see in our archives. They are such unique, resonant stand-ins for Planet Earth. Here’s a video of them set to music.
PPPPS | You Promised Cartoons
Help grow Changing Climate Times. Subscribe for free and read past issues at changingclimatetimes.substack.com. Pass the link forward to your social mediaverse. | Feedback and content ideas welcome. | Be well. And save the world. Not the big one—the one in which you live and love. | Changing Climate Times Concierge and Curator Douglas John Imbrogno | douglasjohnmartin AT icloud.com
TEAM|WORK: Thanks to David Imbrogno for editing feedback.