Hot Take

2019 brought an explosion of climate coverage in a variety of forms, and from the broadest coalition of voices yet. The movement grappled with gatekeepers and finally looked honestly at its racist past. Good thing too, because with increasing disasters, growing eco-fascism, and a total absence of global political leadership on climate, we need all hands on deck. It's go time.
Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/171s0nlm8xvncu4/AAB9wsO7RJNFMnio5J3poKVva?dl=0
Reading list:
Kanaka Maoli: Don't Mistake our Aloha for Weakness: https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/news/kanaka-maoli-do-not-mistake-our-aloha-for-weakness-c0x8lkRr90miH95TkZcfZA
Plastics: The New Coal in Appalachia? https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25022019/plastics-hub-appalachian-fracking-ethane-cracker-climate-change-health-ohio-river
Cop Out: https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/cop-out/
I'm the 13-year-old Police Threatened to Arrest at the Kirribilli House Protest. This Is Why I Did It: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2019/dec/21/im-the-13-year-old-police-threatened-to-arrest-at-the-kirribilli-house-protest-this-is-why-i-did-it?CMP=share_btn_tw
European colonization of Americas killed so many it cooled Earth's climate: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/31/european-colonization-of-americas-helped-cause-climate-change
The Environmental Movement Needs to Reckon with Its Racist History: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjwvn8/the-environmental-movement-needs-to-reckon-with-its-racist-history
Black Women Are Leaders in the Climate Movement: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/opinion/black-women-leaders-climate-movement.html
What Listening Means in a Time of Climate Crisis: https://lithub.com/what-listening-means-in-a-time-of-climate-crisis/
When the Hero Is the Problem: https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-when-the-hero-is-the-problem/
Thunberg Isn't the Only Young Voice We Should Be Listening To: https://newrepublic.com/article/155861/thunberg-isnt-young-voice-listening
Meet the Young Activists of Color Who Are Leading the Charge against Climate Disaster: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/11/20904791/young-climate-activists-of-color
Why the Guardian Is Changing the Language It Uses about the Environment:

2018 brought massive change to the ways we talk about climate. Global climate scientists put out the most alarming report yet on climate change impacts and projections, and media covered that report with the seriousness it deserved. The climate movement finally started moving past the hope narrative, and with megastorms ramping up and a town called Paradise burning down, climate change became impossible to ignore.
Reading List:
The Atlantic, The Media Barely Covered One of the Worst Storms to Hit U.S. Soil, by Alia Wong and Lenika Cruz
On Being, We Need Courage, Not Hope to Face Climate Change, by Kate Marvel
Slate, Who is the WE in “We Are Causing Climate Change”? by Genevieve Guenther
The New York Times Magazine, Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change, by Nathaniel Rich
The New York Times, A Man Set Himself on Fire. We Barely Noticed, by Nathan Englander
The Atlantic, Climate Change May Cause 26000 More U.S. Suicides by 2050, by Robinson Meyer
The Guardian Suicides of Nearly 60,000 Farmers Linked to Climate Change, Study Claims, by Michael Safi
The New York Times, A Warming World Creates Desperate People, by Lauren Markham
The New Republic, Climate Kings, by Samuel Miller McDonald
The Intercept, There's Nothing Natural about Puerto Rico's Disaster, by Naomi Klein
ProPublica and Reveal, Flood Thy Neighbor, by Lisa Song and Patrick Michels
The New York Times, California's Underwater Forests Are Being Eaten by the 'Cockroaches of the Ocean,' by Kendra Pierre-Louis
Vice, Sons of the Pre-Apocalypse, by Brian Merchant
The Guardian, Don't Despair: The climate fight is only over if you think it is, by Rebecca Solnit

What happened in climate coverage in the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2016 election, how natural disasters rocked our world and our stories in 2017, Standing Rock, pieces that changed the narrative forever, and more.
Stories discussed in this ep:
ProPublica, "Houston's Perfect Storm" https://projects.propublica.org/houston/
Rolling Stone, “Can New York Be Saved in the Era of Global Warming?” https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/can-new-york-be-saved-in-the-era-of-global-warming-240454/
Sierra Magazine, “How Can We Talk about Global Warming” https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/how-can-we-talk-about-global-warming
Chicago Review of Books cli-fi column https://chireviewofbooks.com/2017/04/13/11-climate-fiction-authors-favorite-books/
Standing Rock; Eviction Letter to the Army Corps of Engineers by Harold Frazier of the Sioux http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/cheyenne-river-sioux-tribe-reacts-u-s-army-corps-engineers-eviction-notice-letter-makes-grave-dangerous-mistake/
The Guardian, "I Was Arrested for Protesting," https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/03/i-was-arrested-for-protesting-my-idealism-did-not-prepare-me-for-that-experience 
Mother Jones, "“This is How Puerto Ricans are Talking about Climate Change” https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/09/heres-how-puerto-ricans-are-talking-about-climate-change/
New York Magazine, "The Uninhabitable Earth," http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html
The Atlantic, "Democrats are Shockingly Unprepared to Fight Climate Change" https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/there-is-no-democratic-plan-to-fight-climate-change/543981/
Inside Climate News, "Finding Middle Ground" series https://insideclimatenews.org/content/middle-ground
The Nearly Now, "The Smokestacks Come Tumbling Down" https://thenearlynow.com/the-smokestacks-come-tumbling-down-c03ba1294522
Bitch, "The Least Convenient Truth" series https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/least-convenient-truth/climate-change-and-white-supremacy
Island, "Endlings" https://www.taswriters.org/wildcare-winner-harriet-rileys-essay-endlings/
The New York Times Magazine, "How Singapore Is Creating More Land for Itself,"

In this intro episode, Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt share their own approaches to climate storytelling and what they love most about each other's work.
Mary's work:
The big lie that we're told about climate change is that it's our own fault
I work in the environmental movement. I don't care if you recycle.
Home is always worth it
After the Storm
Amy's work:
Of course U.S. birthrates are falling
The Case for Climate Rage
Why Are The New York Times and Washington Post Producing Ads for Big Oil?
Drilled

Climate change is the biggest story of our time. But sometimes we get so caught up in the story itself, we don't make time to talk about the storytelling ... how exactly are we understanding and processing this issue, and how do we ensure that conversations over both problems and solutions are productive? Welcome to Hot Take, a media criticism show about climate change coverage, with an eye toward making the conversation more productive, powerful, and inclusive.