ANDREW BACEVICH—Item: Approximately eight million metric tons of plastic were seeping into the world’s oceans each year, from the ingestion of which vast numbers of seabirds, fish, and marine mammals were dying annually. Payback would come in the form of microplastics contained in seafood consumed by humans. Item: With China and other Asian countries increasingly refusing to accept American recyclables, municipalities in the United States found themselves overwhelmed by accumulations of discarded glass, plastic, metal, cardboard, and paper. That year, the complete breakdown of the global recycling system already loomed as a possibility. Item: Worldwide bird and insect populations were plummeting. In other words, the Sixth Mass Extinction had begun.
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PATRICK WALKER—As needed shaming, demanding Trump’s long-overdue impeachment for his way-beyond-criminal policy—and asking Democrats the embarrassing question of why they’ve never thought of it—goes far toward accomplishing the trick. But Democrats (especially in the face of party donors, many tied to fossil fuels) are cowards, so (if you’ll pardon me the pun), climate activists demanding Trump’s climate-based impeachment must ourselves stand on unimpeachable ground.
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ROB URIE—The 2020 presidential election seems the time and place to raise the political stakes. Given the improbability of resolving environmental problems within capitalism, and that Bernie Sanders is the only national political figure to take a stand, however qualified, against capitalism, his candidacy can serve as a rallying point. Unless radical action is taken quickly, events will unfold that pose a risk to large numbers of people. Once Mr. Sanders has been pushed out of the way by establishment Democrats, and he will be, events can take on a life of their own.
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JULIA CONLEY—When he continuously pumped carbon into the oceans, however, as humans have been doing at greater and greater levels since the late 18th century, the ocean model eventually reached a threshold which triggered what MIT called “a cascade of chemical feedbacks,” or “excitation,” causing extreme acidification and worsening the warming effects of the originally-added carbon.
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ERIC SCHECHTER—Climate activist Bill McKibben explained that the oil companies need to leave most of their proven reserves in the ground. He may have overlooked the fact that in our current economic system, a corporation cannot simply walk away from most of its assets. We must distinguish between a corporation and its employees. If a corporate manager says “we shouldn’t be making a profit this way, it’s bad for the world,” he will just be fired.
