Image courtesy of Union of Concerned Scientists, “Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate 2018.”
With the news that global atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide set a record high last seen 3 million years ago, calls for action have been accelerating—as has press coverage, from publications big and small.
London was the site of major protests earlier, with massive numbers of mostly young people in front of the Houses of Parliament, and protestors blockading roads in the central city, said CNN and the BBC.
And activists have increasingly found themselves going to more extreme levels to get their message across—such as the lawyer who set himself on fire in Brooklyn, NY, last year. The Guardian did a touching, extensive profile of the latter, on the one-year anniversary of his self-immolation.
And the New York Times Magazine just did a special issue on climate.
Even small local papers are picking up on this trend towards a more climate-aware public, including the Daily Hampshire Gazette (average daily circulation: 14,763) of Northampton, Mass. One of the older newspapers in the country—its first issue covered Shays’ Rebellion—the Gazette devoted the top of its front page to an in-depth interview with Green New Deal supporter Jim McGovern, who also happens to be one of the Massachusetts members of the US House of Representatives. Commenting on the fervor he’s been picking up on the trail, McGovern said: “The amount of young people that are engaged on this issue is amazing to me. Middle, high school kids, and college students—they are so articulate, and they are so motivated. I think climate change is this generation’s Vietnam.”
(Full disclosure: The Gazette was the site of my first job, as an 18-year-old photo intern.)
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