Where is the urgency in Grand Rapids around Climate Change and Climate Justice?

On Tuesday, WOODTV8 posted a story with the following headline, Grand Rapids sets record for number of 70-degree-plus days in calendar year.

The brief story on channel 8 provided some data and a few graphics, like the one here above, which shows that the record for 70 degree plus days in 2024 is the most, with 85 days still remaining in the year.

Besides the graphics and a brief narrative, there is one major omission in this story – the reporter failed to mention Climate Change. 

There are two types of Climate Denial

The first type of climate denial is the one that most of us are familiar with, where institutions and people simply deny that human activity has been drastically impacting the planetary climate, specifically by warming the planet to a likely unsustainable level.

Despite the fact that the large majority of Climate Scientists, many of which are part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have been saying for several decades that Climate Change is a scientific fact, there continues to be plenty of denial.

Now, some of this denial is rooted in religious belief, but a large majority of the climate deniers are motivated by political, ideological and economic reasons. In fact, it has been well documented for years that many fossil fuel corporations have not only denied Climate Change, but have funded other groups to promote climate denial. 

Maybe the most notorious climate denier has been ExxonMobil. GreenPeace provides an excellent historical timeline of when and how the fossil fuel corporation has denied that the planet is warming because of human activity.

ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies have been funding numerous groups, like the Heartland Institute to promote climate denial. In fact, the online source DeSmog, provides an excellent database for anyone who wants to research organizations or individuals who engage in climate denial. For instance, the Grand Rapids-based group, the Acton Institute, has a history of climate denial, plus the database lets you know which groups have been funding the Acton Institute to promote that Climate Change isn’t real. Also, check out this fabulous interactive map from DeSmog, which provides more insights into how climate denial groups are connected.

Then there is the role that politics plays into climate denial. If you look at the Oil & Gas industry alone (there are lots of industry sectors that contribute to Climate Change) you can see that the large majority of money coming from the Oil & Gas industry has gone to the Republican Party since 1990, according to the OpenSecrets.

However, the second form of climate denial is what most of us participate in. Let me put it this way, you can believe that Climate Change is real, but continue to participate in the very systems that perpetuate Climate Change. For instance, the Biden Administration is on pace to approve as many oil and gas leases as Trump did, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. In other words, if you voted for Biden thinking that the Climate Crisis would lessen, then you are mistaken. 

Another example of how simply voting for the lesser of evils doesn’t result in reversing the harm of the current Climate Crisis is the Inflation Reduction Act that the Biden Administration adopted in late 2022. A report from Oil Change International, entitled, Biden’s Fossil Fuel Fail: How U.S. Oil and Gas Supply Rises under the Inflation Reduction Act, Exacerbating Environmental Injustice, makes a mockery of President Joe Biden’s claims of “climate leadership.”

A third example of simply thinking that voting will make a difference with Climate Change is the simple fact that the Biden Administration has adopted the largest ever US Military Budgets every year he has been the president. The US military is one of the largest consumers of fossil fuels, and even consumes more fossil fuels than most countries around the world. Check out the essential report, No Warming, No War:How Militarism Fuels the Climate Crisis — and Vice Versa.

What Can We Do?

1. Stop participating in ineffective, feel good activities. We have to see the big picture and not just do things like sign petitions, vote or buy “earth friendly” products.
2. We have to educate ourselves and look at the systems of power that are perpetuating Climate Change. Read Stephen D’Arcy’s essay, Environmentalism as if Winning Mattered: A Self-Organization Strategy. 
3. At the same time we have to resist these systems of power, and by systems of power I mean – the US Military Industrial Complex, the current Agri-business food system, Capitalism, White Supremacy, the Prison Industrial Complex, transportation systems, the media system and other systems that perpetuate the Climate Crisis.
4. We need to engage in direct action. One great example is from a report put out by the Indigenous Environmental Network in 2021. The report stated that Indigenous-led resistance campaigns against pipelines in the US and Canada have reduced greenhouse gas pollution by at least 25% annually since these campaigns began. 
5. While we are resisting systems of power, such as Capitalism, we need to create new economic systems that are based on cooperation, are eco-centered and not based on perpetual growth. In Stephen D’Arcy’s essay mentioned in #2, he addresses what he calls the transition phase, where humanity is transitioning to something new and truly sustainable.
6. Get involved in a local organizing/resistance group or campaign. If these groups are not adopting any of the previous points listed here, then challenge them to do so. The future of humanity and ecosystems is dependent on what we chose to do that does not protect our own asses, but fights for future generations.