Friday Nudge: Climate Strike is Coming Up!
Today's Friday Nudge includes a reminder to join the global climate strike near you, and a book recommendation that offers hope
Welcome! I’m Jessica, and this newsletter is about faith and climate action. You can subscribe by clicking here:
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Happy Friday! September is my favourite month; I have always loved going back to school, whether as a kid, a grad student or now as a mother sending my kids off to their new grades. The air is still warm but the evenings are getting cooler - at least, that’s how it should be. This week’s heat wave in Ottawa, as I mentioned in my post on Tuesday, is the exception that is no longer exceptional, as the climate crisis hits home more and more.
Despite the fear and anxiety this new reality brings to me and others, the hope that I have always felt in September hasn’t diminished, and so I bring you two offerings today that reflect this hope in concrete ways. Enjoy!
Book Recommendation
No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air by Mark Z. Jacobson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023)
One of the common statements to come out of greenwashing in the oil and gas industry and their lobbyists, as well as others who are uninformed, is that we do not have the technology ready now to go completely fossil-fuel-free and move to a zero-carbon reality globally. This is untrue. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others have been stating that the technologies that we need to do so are here now, they have been proven to be effective, and to be affordable (assuming governments and industry are prepared to spend on them).
In this book, environmental engineer Mark Jacobson offers a readable and concrete roadmap to individuals, local communities, and countries for getting off fossil fuels and onto “WWS” – Water, Wind, and Solar technologies that exist today. The chapters detail solutions for generating energy, storing that energy, transportation, buildings, industry, nonenergy emissions, and more. He has a chapter on “What Doesn’t Work,” as well as chapters that go into more detail about electricity, solar power, and wind energy. Finally, he presents concrete steps that can be taken in developing a zero-carbon infrastructure.
Technology is only one part of a map of hope; we also need political will, community collaboration, and spiritual formation. Yet, technology is the critical part of the what and the how of getting off fossil fuels and on to zero-carbon energy generation. This book offers a vital dimension of hope in the climate crisis. Check it out and let me know what you think!
Call to Action: Join the Global Climate Strike this Month
This year’s Global Climate Strike 2023 is being held around the world between Sept 15-17. You are invited! Here in Ottawa, we will be meeting at Parliament Hill at 1:00 p.m. Please join me and many others!
Not in Ottawa? The strikes are happening around the world. To find a strike near you, click here: Fridays for Future or Global Climate Strike.
I’m taking my kids out of school to join me at the strike. Immersion education! What about you? Are you going? Bringing kids or grandkids?
We need to pursue some technical fixes but not if the fix is just going to create more environmental devastation and species loss. For example, the expansion of nuclear power. Clearly, there is no perfect technology that is going to give us the energy we need to maintain our current level of complexity. My study has led me to conclude that only by powering down and working towards a managed descent in our use of energy will we be able to create a society that is more just and ecologically sustainable. For this problem is so much more than just getting to net zero as our leaders like to say. To get a sense of the complexity of this "super wicked" predicament that is climate change, take a look at this flowchart. I suggest you listen to the narration rather than explore it on your own. It's presented in a humorous way but strong language is used. https://flowchart.bettercatastrophe.com/?fbclid=IwAR1HOin9wHOHaV0szOOIx1TFwOvWaRQfCAt17FneNOLYmtIa1LV9b86ET50