Do you think there is hope for our future? Can we still save Earth in about 12 years? How can we achieve that goal?

socalledunitedstates:

I don’t know, but I don’t think this is a useful train of thought. Getting caught up in probabilities and potentials for the future can easily lead to either a crippling hopelessness or an apathetic sense of security, when what we need is motivation and urgency. Thankfully the recent UN report has spurred a lot of people to action, and I think we’re going to see more and more people abandoning the ineffective governmental/corporate means of protecting the environment in favor of popular movements

I think one of the best models for reducing the effects of climate change is Transition Towns, a grassroots movement working on a city-by-city basis to create sustainable circular economies. I like this one in particular because it’s community-focused, putting the power in people’s hands while leaving behind the big corporations that are causing the problem. 350.org is similar

The Buy Nothing Project is trying to build that community-controlled circular economy from the ground up. In particular, industrial agriculture is responsible for a good chunk of greenhouse gases, so growing your own food either in a personal or community garden (as well as producing your own eggs, goat milk, honey, etc. if you’re keen on that) is a good place to start. My practical tag has a lot of resources for this kind of thing

It’s also vital that we strike back, by blocking pipelines, occupying forests and other land, picketing coal mines, etc

That said, we’re already seeing the effects of climate change, and things are definitely going to get worse before they get better, so focus some of your effort on helping the people affected by it. Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is pretty much what it says on the tin, people offering help after natural disasters – they were partially responsible for getting solar power to Puerto Rico following Maria (and they have a great list of other organizations on their site). We also need to support climate refugees – in the US that can mean stuff like leaving water out for migrants crossing the desert or sabotaging the wall, in Europe it means supporting groups like Sea Watch who are rescuing refugees at sea. And everywhere it means fighting fascism and any attempt to leave these people to die

Remember that citizens outnumber politicians, and workers outnumber capitalists. We have the power to put an end to this, we just need to organize and fight back. “If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped.“