September 4, 2015 Post I

For the first blog entry in a series of many, I will be focusing on articles by Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, as they were a part of The Guardian’s recent series on climate change. Being an aspiring journalist, a few things really struck me about the way in which these pieces were done and about what points they discussed.

            Klein’s piece from This Changes Everything was brave in its admission to (at least, formerly) being a climate change denier. In fact it raises the point that nearly all of us are in denial. She goes on to say that, “We deny because we fear that letting in the full reality of this crisis will change everything. And we are right.” This is an interesting and all too real perspective. It raises awareness to the reader that simply living a better, more eco-friendly lifestyle yourself is not enough. Instead, there must nearly be a revolution to change the industry and our policies to work towards a more sustainable future. Big changes need to happen and not contributing to them, thinking that personal change or belief that someone else will go and fix the problem later on is a form of ignorance. You are looking away from the problem whether or not you know it.

            As Dr. O’Reilly mentioned in class, McKibben’s article, Pressure is growing. A relentless climate movement is starting to win big, unprecedented victories around the world, victories which are quickly reshaping consensus, is a refreshing take on the climate change article. Rather than being the typical, “Here is this new study and some scientists and one denier who have opinions on it,” McKibben chooses to focus on the small victories and how they are important to the next climate summit in Paris. He reinforces what Klein touches on a bit, by giving examples of how ordinary people collectively brought about change such as University divestment, bans on fracking, and the prevention of four new coal ports that were once planned to be built in Wyoming.

            He also talks about environmental injustice, which is an issue I would love to look at a little more closely. Essentially climate change is affecting nations and groups of people that carry less political and industrial power more heavily. They are paying the prices for our blunders and as of now I have heard of few solutions for this. Possibly making the jump to renewable energies would build up the economies of the nations, giving them power, but they would need the funds to begin this process first. I am extremely interested to see how this play out in the Paris negotiations.

            Ultimately, I feel that these are excellent examples of environmental journalism and am excited to read more of these and get to the essence of the importance of media when talking about climate change.

-Jordan Narloch