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By RUSS VERNON-JONES

The U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world. Our economy has been tremendously productive and our total wealth has grown dramatically. Yet millions of people in the U.S. don’t have enough to eat; millions lack adequate homes; and millions still lack health insurance. We seem unable to adequately fund our schools or to find the funds to address the climate crisis.

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

Many of us are wondering how we can be most effective in blocking authoritarianism from completely taking over the United States now that Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are about to assume political power. This is not an easy question, but it’s...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

The election of Donald Trump is catastrophic in so many ways. It will mean untold suffering for many people and for our country as a whole. It also will be disastrous for the global climate crisis.We are at a moment in history when the entire world...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

We’ve known that climate change is getting worse. We’ve known that we are going to see more serious effects of climate change in the United States. Nonetheless, the wind, the rain, the flooding, the damage, the deaths caused by Hurricane Helene,...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

When we think about the climate crisis our minds often, quite rightly, go to how greenhouse gas emissions are causing the global temperature to rise, causing catastrophic storms, floods, fires, and hunger. What we sometimes forget is that burning...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

Last month, the first 9,000 members of the new American Climate Corps were sworn in and started work. This federal program is designed to train young people and engage them in new government-funded jobs in the clean energy, conservation, and climate...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

Will we be able to pass a livable world on to future generations? Given the climate emergency, is there hope for the future?Whether we want to think about climate change or not, most of us care about the answers to these questions. New polling data...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

There has been some discussion of carrots and sticks in our nation’s climate policy. Why? What’s at stake here and why does it matter?The metaphor apparently goes back more than a century to a cartoon that portrayed a race between two donkey riders —...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

My column last month, “Solving humanity’s shared climate crisis” noted that greenhouse gas emissions anywhere, cause climate change everywhere. I explained the importance of the countries that have gotten rich burning fossil fuels providing funds to...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

A great many of us care about the climate crisis. Many of us have taken steps to reduce our carbon footprints. Many of us have advocated for good climate policy at the local, state, and national levels. We have voted for candidates who seemed most...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

For the last two months I’ve written to you about the U.S. becoming the world’s largest exporter of climate-destroying gas and oil; about the fossil fuel industry’s plans to vastly expand these harmful exports; and about a campaign to stop them by...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

Last month I wrote about the damage the U.S. is causing to the global climate by exporting huge amounts of oil and LNG (liquefied natural methane gas) — the most of any country in the world. I shared the information that the fossil fuel industry wants...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

Eight years ago in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the nations of the world set a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. They agreed that every nation, and especially the wealthiest ones, would contribute to reducing climate-damaging...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

When I was in Manhattan for New York Climate Week in late September, I met climate author and activist Margaret Klein Salamon for the first time. Margaret played a key role some years ago in getting activists, and then much of the press and many...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

Before I mention anything else, I want to acknowledge the horrors of the war in Israel and Gaza. I believe that every human life is precious. I’m deeply grieved by what is happening there, as well as in other wars around the world. Regardless of your...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

On Sunday, Sept. 17, thousands of people who care about the climate will take to the streets of New York City in a “March to End Fossil Fuels.” The March coincides with the first ever ”Climate Ambition Summit” at the UN, which the Secretary-General is...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

The climate news has been especially brutal recently — both locally and globally. While it’s important to face how bad things are, I think it is wise to also put our attention on good climate news wherever we can find it. Here are some of the local...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

Floods, heat waves, smoke-polluted air, torrential rains — climate change has certainly come to our part of the world. Personally, I find myself most saddened by local farms, both CSAs and others, losing crops that were growing well and also having...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

Early last week my adult daughter called me and asked what I was doing. I told her I was working on a project in my yard. She said, “Have you seen the Air Quality Index (AQI)?”When I said I hadn’t, she said it was over 100 in the Northampton-Amherst...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

“How do you keep from despairing?” a friend recently asked me, knowing that I focus consistently on the climate crisis. It was a heartfelt question. He had started to put more attention on the climate emergency and was encountering the bad news that...

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

I was principal of the Fort River School in Amherst for 18 years. I’m passionate about education and about solving the climate crisis. The proposed new school in Amherst is a major step forward in both. I’m asking all of you who are voters in Amherst...