How can we make the radical social changes needed to address the climate crisis? What kind of large ecological disaster or mass mobilization in the streets needs to take place before we take meaningful climate action?

Dana R. Fisher is the Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity and Professor in the School of International Service at American University. Fisher’s research focuses on questions related to democracy, civic engagement, activism, and climate politics. Current projects include studying political elites’ responses to climate change, and the ways federal service corps programs in the US are integrating climate into their work. She is a self-described climate-apocalyptic optimist and co-developed the framework of AnthroShift to explain how social actors are reconfigured in the aftermath of widespread perceptions and experiences of risk. Her seventh book is Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action.

“There's been some interesting research recently about the fact that we don't really know how many people are losing lives because of extreme heat, right? Extreme events are climate change-exacerbated events, which I call climate shocks in the book. We haven't been counting that. I think we will start counting it and we'll get a better sense of the trends, but there's no doubt that the numbers are going up, even though we aren't sure about the exact numbers globally. We need a lot more people pushing back against power, particularly given the way that fossil fuel interests are continuing to push greenwash to try to continue to affect decision-making. The Trump administration is trying very hard to attract funds from oil companies with the promise that all regulations will be gone. And fossil fuel interests are supporting elected officials and pushing for decision-making that reflects their interests, which is not in the interest of the planet and certainly not in the interest of the general public. I know at the most recent COP, OPEC had its own pavilion. You would have never seen that back in the 1990s, but nowadays, they are trying to present themselves as a pathway towards the other side of the climate crisis, which is just absolutely not true.”

https://danarfisher.com
https://cece.american.edu
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Credit Sarah Fillman from FillmanFoto, 2023