Dispatch #1: How are we doing as a climate movement?
A new segment for Down to Earth
As we mentioned last week, there will be a few changes around here at Down to Earth. We’ll keep going with our long-form articles as normal, but we’re adding in this section which we’re calling The Dispatch.
We wanted it to be a space where we curate all the materials – articles, podcasts, books, or even shows – we’ve been finding impactful lately, as well as any updates we want to share from the organization. It’s also the space where we’ll share a selection of up-to-date job postings and other relevant opportunities in the world of climate and systems change. Myself and Ruby, re•generation’s Marketing & Creative Strategist, will curate the content shared here. As always, we love to hear your feedback, so let us know if you like this format – as well as anything else you’d like to see from us.
As a reminder, we’ve got a content survey going right now to help inform our content offerings so please fill it out if you haven’t already! There are two $100 MEC gift cards up for grabs. If you’re interested in being part of a 20-30 minute focus group-type interview in exchange for $20 (sent via e-transfer), there’s a place to indicate that in the survey.
Amy Westervelt wrote a piece for Drilled News about how fixing media is a climate solution. We agree. Independent reporting is absolutely crucial to a strong climate movement, and if we can’t achieve that, industry players will begin telling those stories for us. In a similar vein, Seth Klein wrote an article for the National Observer stressing just how far the climate movement has veered off-course – and how high the stakes are for fixing it. It’s crucial that all of us doing work in this movement take a step back from time to time to really evaluate how we’re doing (right now, not so well).
The question of whether we need to accept the inevitability of climate disaster in order to move forward—rather than continuing to believe it’s largely preventable—has been another idea we’ve been grappling with recently. It seems counterintuitive, but maybe there’s some truth to it. Jonathan Franzen writes about this for the New Yorker in his piece called “What if we stopped pretending?” Rupert Read makes a similar argument in Desmog that where our power comes from now is in being able to admit that we are powerless, and that we have failed thus far. He argues that we’re spending too much energy trying to maintain a falsely hopeful can-do attitude that things aren’t that bad, and instead must name the truth of our situation before we can move forward. We’ll explore these ideas more in an upcoming piece.
A couple of articles ago we talked about nihilism and how to combat it. We came across this piece from Catherine Shannon’s Substack talking about the dangers of ironic detachment and the fact that everyone is numbing out amidst our increasingly challenging reality, which complements that topic nicely. A recent podcast from Vox’s The Gray Area also explored why cynicism is bad for you. We also can’t forget that so much of this uptick in apathy and mental health issues stems from our neoliberal economic system which is in desperate need of reform.
So let us know in the comments: How do you think we’re doing as a climate movement? What do we need to change? Do we need to lean into our despair before we can move forward? And how do we resist apathy and hopelessness when so many of the systems we live in make it hard to imagine a path forward?
Each instalment, we’re going to share a series of open job postings in systems change jobs across the country. Check out our job board on our website for more!
Clean Foundation - Energy Advisor (Location flexible in Nova Scotia, full-time, $50,000 – $72,500)
Clean Air Partnership - Outreach Coordinator (Toronto, ON, Hybrid, full-time, $60,000-$65,000, 14 months with possibility of extension)
National Farmer's Union - Land Access Coordinator (25 hours/week, October 1, 2024 to March 28, 2025, Remote, $24/hour)
Too Good to Go - Global Graphic Designer (Toronto, ON, in-person full-time)
Our Co-Executive Director (and Down to Earth co-author) will be speaking at two events during NY Climate Week! If you’ll be around, please check out the following events and come say hello:
On September 23rd, the Meanwhile in Canada panel and networking event, hosted by the Trottier Family Foundation, will explore Canadian climate action and innovation. RSVP here.
On September 28th, the Creative Career Summit hosted by Creatives for Climate will take place at the ‘Marketplace of the Future’ to discuss creativity, climate careers, and solutions. Tickets sold here.
As Down to Earth grows, we want to point back to earlier pieces that some newer readers might have missed. This week, the topic of utopia: is it useful? And if so, what role might it play in our journey to a different future?
The case for utopia
