After listening to the podcast “Why is this Happening? with Chris Hayes, he brings on climate expert Andrew Revkin to explore climate change as a whole. Talking about literally everything about it, from the journalism aspect, why it happens, people who talk about it, or influences on it etc. They bring some interesting points to the overall conversation about climate change in general. They begin to scold Republicans who try to dismantle climate change as a hoax, because of tribal belief they have in the party. Where you don’t want to be the person who is out there fighting a fight nobody else from your allegiance is. Even more of a debacle is the educated Republicans being even worse of a denialist than less educated Republicans; which is just scary.

Another point they delve into is the fact that people just aren’t interested in climate all that much. If you had to pick one problem to change in the world; a lot of people would say climate change. But, they just aren’t that excited about it coming from a reading stand point or hearing about it on the news.

Finally, Chris Hayes and Andrew Revkin end it on what they think is the only way for change to happen. Chris believes a technological solution will have to happen that takes carbon out of the atmosphere, along with cheap scalable renewable energy. Andrew Revkin believes the same thing, but factoring in social and behavioral science. Once again, we have to hope our libertarians can generate a fight in office for change to our planet.. or we might not have one.

Naomi Klein: Nathaniel… Rich, I gotta say… I loved the your piece on climate change. I was feeling all types of emotions, even screaming at one point to let out my frustrations. What I want to speak about is the monumental portion that you left out, that more people need to pay attention to…

Kate Aronoff: Of course a piece of journalism like this is at it’s highest level of prestige. Nothing is perfect.. and that goes “Losing Earth” as you tend to pay less attention too the FOSSIL FUEL companies. A country like FIJI doesn’t use any fossil fuel extraction, but are facing the ramifications of the corporations greed. There are 100 companies responsible for 71% of emissions since 1988!

Naomi Klein: You blamed humanity for the reason we didn’t safeguard our future back in the 1980’s. “All the facts were known, and nothing stood in our way, except ourselves.” Not the fossil fuel companies that sat in on EVERY MAJOR POLICY MEETING! Why weren’t they subject to discrimination when they are the biggest contributors for climate change. They are the ones heating up and burning our planet.

Kate Aronoff: “According to a 2015 study from Oxfam, the poorest half of the world’s population accounts for just 10 percent of emissions; around half stem from the richest 10 percent.” We also need to point out that getting the right information in front of the right people doesn’t always pan out. Which is showed numerous times throughout “Losing Earth.”

Naomi Klein: Rich also goes on to call the 1980’s “a favorable time” to beat climate change. More than favorable to be exact… but he is actually little confused. The 1980’s was a zenith for the neoliberal crusade , we were going to a huge upheaval of economic and social projects. In 1988 we signed our 1st free trade agreement with Canada and we were globalizing the world with Capitalism filled with free market fanaticism.

Kate Aronoff: I also want to talk about how the capitalism and free market ideology hindered the efforts of climate changes push to stardom. We had President Reagan advocate strongly for business interests with Wall Street backing it, at the same time he was paying little to none attention to climate change. He was interested in the economy; not the weather.

Naomi Klein: Overall, We are proud of you Nathaniel for bringing this all to light. If someones going to try to fight the fight; why not let it be you.

Let’s imagine Nathaniel Rich of “Losing Earth”, Robinson Meyer from “The Atlantic”, and Emily Atkins from “The New Republic” cordially meet at a bar to discuss their opinions on climate change. Nathaniel as the genius he is goes 1st, thanking them both for reading “Losing Earth” but also challenging them on what they can do to dispel the massive amount of fossil fuels burned into the atmosphere. Robinson Meyer goes next thanking him for the read, while jabbing with comments about how climate change really is impossible when your not focusing on the fossil fuel industries enough rather than the Republicans who barely believe it in office. Right after the comments, Emily Atkins comes in hot, ready for wits in defense of Rich calling his work a pioneering triumph of journalism. She elaborates on how it really is humanities fault and the blame does go for everyone involved including Republicans and the fossil fuel industries such as Exxon. They would all eventually agree on Republicans being a major problem for climate change as the majority of them in office would try to destroy or suffocate all programs or plans on climate change organizations or climate change in general. Where they would disagree is if climate change would ever happen? Meyer would say it’s impossible while Rich and Atkins would say otherwise causing a long debate that goes nowhere. Eventually, ending in dirty martinis for everyone as it still was an educated and peaceful time for all.

It’s like watching “Ninja Turtles”, I’m shell shocked…but also feeling a sense of betrayal,followed by an overwhelming urgency of action that needs to be taken place. Yes, the shitty Michael Bay “Ninja Turtles” movies is what I’m relating to. To be frank, it really is sickening after reading Nathaniel Rich’s “Losing Earth” realizing that we could’ve helped the planet decades ago. What we are left with is our greedy, selfish, and overcompensated ways of living. When we look at our current conditions in the United States we think to ourselves “climate change isn’t that bad.” As a nation and as people we don’t always think about the effects our carbon emissions cause. If we look at Antarctica with the chinstrap penguin colonies declining from 85,000 breeding pairs in 2003 to 52,000 pairs 7 years later due to rising temperatures. Even within the United States, California’s wildfires just last year killed 40 people destroying 8,000 homes. With the vegetation at a record high value for dryness adding kindling to an already fire prone state. Overall, it’s a travesty we have so many activists looking to save the world with the younger generation feeling as if they are left to save the planet. Does it even matter, if nobody is willing to listen?