What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures

We are burning ancient plants and animals (aka fossil fuels, not renewable) to jet around and wear fast fashion, and build highways and skyscrapers, and heat outdoor swimming pools in autumn, and shiver inside in summer, and convert lush ecosystems into sprawling and unwalkable suburbs with silly lawns, and commute alone in our cars to jobs that do

And the four biggest American banks—JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America—are responsible for more than a trillion dollars of that.

McKinsey estimates that getting to net zero is a more than $12 trillion (trillion!) opportunity.

Of more than 500 global companies, 69% report higher-than-expected financial returns on climate initiatives.

Fighting Exxon is key, and we’ve done it with some success, but we’re well aware that Exxon is going to fight to the last breath. Their business model depends entirely on digging stuff up and setting it on fire. And so they’ll fight for the right to combust. But there’s no reason for Chase or Citi to fight to the end. They make some money off this

That study looked at the financial holdings of the big tech companies, Google, Apple, and so on because (a) these guys have a lot of money, and (b) they’ve all pledged to go net zero. Well, it turns out the money these tech companies have sitting in the bank is producing far more carbon than anything they’re doing with their operations, because the

For decades, environmental justice communities have been elucidating how businesses largely caused the four intertwined crises we face—climate, biodiversity, injustice, and democracy—and made a windfall doing it.

When that BankFWD analysis factored in these new numbers, Google’s carbon emissions went up 111% overnight. Microsoft’s financed emissions were even higher than Google’s. And Netflix has more carbon coming from its cash than from all the servers around the world dishing out TV every night.

Per the Environmental Voter Project, 8 million registered voters across the U.S. who have environment/climate as their number one voting issue did not vote in the 2020 election. To help inform your choice of candidates, the League of Conservation Voters tracks the environmental voting records of members of Congress:

Money is made up. The planet is real. And yet it’s the made-up thing we bow down to. —Katharine K. Wilkinson