This debate is as old as climate change awareness itself. What can be done and who should do it?

Vermont US Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative for New York District 14 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, founder of 350.org Bill McKibben, American journalist David Wallace-Wells, and Rhode Island US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse held the livestream “Climate Change: Where do we go from here?” on Twitch on July 12, 2023.

As the panelists got into the nitty gritty of climate change issues, the sidebox chat was lively and rapid. In the chat, followers of Sanders were debating individual action versus regulating the top 500 polluting companies, as to which would do more to stave off climate change.

“Corporations cause most of the pollution, but they only respond to the market,” said username keinengott. “We demand stuff and they make the stuff.”

Another follower responded immediately, “Why are we watching this if not to hear what individual action we should take,” said username dreanacouffin.

A third follower brought in the rebuttal, “We are watching this to see the information and action that can be taken from a US path not as what we as individuals can do,” said username demonsfire.

According to panelists, the actions to take regarding climate change depend on the opportunities available. Wallace-Wells pointed to what’s possible in the developing nations.

“Ninety percent of the world lives in places where clean energy is cheaper than dirty energy,” said Wallace-Wells. “The poorest countries are richer in solar capacity than they are in dirty energy.”

And studies show that that’s exactly what they’re doing. In 2015, developing nations outspent developed nations in terms of US dollars spent on renewable energy.

According to Emil Noordeh of Stanford University in the study, “Developing nations have a choice today to ‘leapfrog’ over heavy investment in dirty forms of energy (i.e. coal and fossil fuels) and instead make large scale investments into renewable forms of energy.”

Noordeh also said that developing nations can benefit from new technologies without investing in R&D costs, freeing up capital for implementation. Developing nations can avoid oil and gas market fluctuations and the politics of those businesses, too.

But panelists at this get-together also said there’s more we can do in developed countries. For example, organizations and individuals can pursue legal battles against those who perpetuate climate change.

“Honest courtrooms can do a really good job,” Whitehouse said.

According to ClientEarth, the high court in the United Kingdom determined that its current net-zero policy violated the Climate Change Act and needs to be made stronger. ClientEarth also won a lawsuit in the Netherlands against the airline KLM for greenwashing – claiming its sustainability of its flying campaign was misleading. It also filed a lawsuit against Shell for mismanaging climate risk – for not having a strategy aligned with the Paris Agreement, a legally binding treaty on climate change signed by 196 countries at the United Nations.

“The potential this fight has in the courts is massive,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

The panelists want to hold fossil fuel companies legally responsible for what they’ve done —- disinformation campaigns, conscious climate changing and polluting choices, and their general business model are all contributing to this problem.

“They knew exactly what was going on, they knew their role, they knew their responsibility,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “They quickly decided the cheaper and easier thing to do would be to launch a multi-decade disinformation campaign.”

For the panelists, it’s the biggest fight we’ll see in the next 50 years.

“The world is at stake,” Sanders said.

Ocasio-Cortez said Congress needs to implement historic, federally driven policy to combat climate change: policy broader and larger than something like the Inflation Reduction Act, which, according to the representative, was historic in its investments but also far too little.

On July 14, Vice President Kamala Harris announced the first-of-its-kind Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created through the Inflation Reduction Act and aimed to support projects to combat pollution while creating well-paying jobs and lowering energy costs for families.

“When the President and I invest in climate, we intend to invest in jobs, invest in families, and invest in America,” said the vice president, amplifying Ocasio-Cortez’s argument.

Ocasio-Cortez said that with the insight and technology for targeting climate change that the United States now has, Congress can have a quickly-deployed policy that will create opportunities for working- class people, while also putting young people to work.

According to the Department of Energy, 231 gigawatts direct current of photovoltaics were installed globally in 2022; however, McKibben explained that this kind of technology is not being used, because of the political power that those controlling the coal and gas industry possess.

“Sun and wind are available everywhere; coal and gas and oil are in scarce deposits, which means that the people who control those end up with too much power,” McKibben said.

As an example, McKibben talked about the Koch brothers, American billionaire businessmen known for their vast investments in politics.

“In our country, that’s the Koch brothers who are our biggest oil and gas parents,” McKibben said. “They purchased one of our political parties and they degrade and deform our democracy.”

In 2017, Charles and David Koch spent millions of dollars to get a federal tax law slashing corporate tax rates passed, giving $500,000 to House Speaker Paul Ryan. The new tax law – which would bring corporate tax rates to 21 percent from the previous 35 percent and cut estate taxes, as well as include a special tax deduction for oil and gas investors – and saved the Koch brothers and their businesses millions of tax dollars.

According to Princeton University in 2022, just after the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act, a new study found that 66-80 percent of Americans support climate actions, but feel alone in their efforts.

Gregg Sparkman, an assistant professor at Boston College, told Princeton, “[People] fall into a trap of, ‘I support this but I think other people don’t, so in a democratic society, that means there’s nothing else to be done, beyond maybe convincing your peers.’ ”

However, McKibben believes people do not even need to convince their peers.

“The 70 percent of people who understand we have a problem are enough if we can get them more and more activated,” McKibben said.

The livestream ended after the panel answered a question from the audience: “Why should we keep trying? Hasn’t the change we have made already gone too far?”

Ocasio-Cortez responded that climate change can be contained by what we choose to do, who we choose to vote for, how we choose to organize, and how we choose to act, and if we are radical. The representative said that we are never too late, never beyond hope, and must always keep combating climate change.

“A life of having given up is not a life at all,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We have an obligation to fight.”

(To watch the entire livestream, watch the uploaded recording HERE.) 

–July 27, 2023–