Wen Stephenson, who writes for The Nation (among other publications), has a new book out, Learning to Live in the Dark: Essays in a Time of Climate Catastrophe. There is so much despair and doom among people who understand climate change. One big part of the book--the part we focus on in this episode--asks about an earlier time that was likewise filled with doom and despair: the 1930s and 1940s. Wen considers how some of the major writers of that time--Arendt, Camus, Weil, and others--found meaning in the midst of despair. But what about today? Where do we find the resolve to keep going when there's so much despair and doom? Wen offers some answers.

This week we recount the climate disasters from June and July—some of the significant destructions and disruptions that would not be happening without climate change. This is the latest of an occasional series showing that climate change is not a thing of the future. It’s a thing of the present.

In this episode we talk about the gigantic loss of old growth forests last year. Also, fossil fuel companies are claiming that destroying the environment is freedom of speech, first amendment protected - they're actually making this claim in court. And we look at some reprehensible statements by Sierra Club's former Executive Director. We call out the bad stuff when it's from environmentalists,  too.

A short reflection after doing the preceding episodes with Saabira Chaudhuri on plastics. We absolutely must stop producing material that never decomposes and can only be recycled a limited number of times. Otherwise plastics will inevitably cover the earth. Even wild science fiction scenarios aren't solutions. We're better off doing it sooner than waiting a few decades or longer to make the problem worse.

Saabira Chaudhuri was the Wall Street Journal's consumer goods reporter. Her upcoming book is called Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic. We learn from her the origins of plastic as a mass consumer good after World War II, already known to big industry as a severe environmental problem by the 1960s, but pushed and pushed onto consumers. Big supermarkets replaced local shops and a disposable throw-it-away society came into being largely through plastic. We talk all about recycling, why it's better than not recycling but is not enough. We discuss whether to simply ban plastics. Along the way we get a little bit of insider information on the Wall Street Journal, too.

Just a short time ago, there were far more street protests, including confrontational civil disobedience where folks deliberately got arrested. We talk with two of them about the experience. As they explain, it's not about getting arrested. It's about bringing attention to the climate crisis that they fear will have a terrible impact on their grandchildren's lives. Through them we hear eyewitness accounts of an action that blocked the home of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, an action that blocked the Manhattan headquarters of JP Morgan Chase, and an action at the Bow Coal Plant in New Hampshire where there might have been more police than protesters.

We open with a comment on the Iranian bombings and what they have to do with the climate crisis, then move into the first of a two-part discussion on immigration and climate. The Los Angeles raids and protests are a great illustration of how ICE uses a robotic approach of not considering the social impacts of what they are doing. The thing is, there is a deep tradition of law enforcement trying to consider the social impacts of their policing. Bringing that back in the right kind of way is how we can dramatically improve immigration enforcement. And we'd better do that, because many millions more are coming as the climate crisis makes Central America uninhabitable.

After a quick note on what happens when there's no more insurance in a climate changed world, we talk about fear of speaking out. We start with the real life example of a wealthy and well-connected person with strong advocacy skills who is not speaking out against the Trump administration out of fear of what could happen to her grandchildren. We digest that and talk about how to feel fear and act anyway.

Whatever authorities can do to one social movement they can do to another one. Watch what's happening to truth-telling about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That could happen in the future to truth-telling about climate change: Individual spokespeople detained or deported without hearings, academic studies de-funded, a society of fear where organizations anticipatorily crack down on what they imagine the authorities would object to, and a general shut-down of truth. This episode tells some truth about the Palestinian conflict to illustrate the point, and goes on to say that the solution is to speak out. Cowering in fear becomes permanent if we don't.

Could lawsuits against fossil fuel companies save the climate? Maybe. If the companies had to pay for even a fraction of the destruction they are causing, they would quickly go out of business. Alycee (who is an attorney) and Matthew (who is not) discuss. Also, the utopia of being truthful, and our semblance of constitutional order.