Article: The solutions to the climate crisis no one is talking about

We can't wait for these changes to be introduced in 5 or 10 years time -- we need them now.

Fourth, require the fossil fuel companies that have profited from environmental injustice compensate the communities they've harmed.

As if buying-off our democracy wasn't enough, these corporations have also deliberately misled the public for years on the amount of damage their products have been causing.

For instance, as early as 1977, Exxon's own scientists were warning managers that fossil fuel use would warm the planet and cause irreparable damage. In the 1980s, Exxon shut down its internal climate research program and shifted to funding a network of advocacy groups, lobbying arms, and think tanks whose sole purpose was to cloud public discourse and block action on the climate crisis. The five largest oil companies now spend about $197 million a year on ad campaigns claiming they care about the climate all the while massively increasing their spending on oil and gas extraction.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans, especially poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, already have to fight to drink clean water and breathe clean air as their communities are devastated by climate-fueled hurricanes, floods, and fires. As of 2015, nearly 21 million people relied on community water systems that violated health-based quality standards.

Going by population, that's essentially 200 Flint, Michigans, happening all at once. If we continue on our current path, many more communities run the risk of becoming "sacrifice zones," where citizens are left to survive the toxic aftermath of industrial activity with little, if any, help from the entities responsible for creating it.

Climate denial and rampant pollution are not victimless crimes. Fossil fuel corporations must be held accountable, and be forced to pay for the damage they've wrought.

If these solutions sound drastic to you, it's because they are. They have to be if we have any hope of keeping our planet habitable. The climate crisis is not a far-off apocalyptic nightmare it is our present day.

Australia's bush-fires wiped out a billion animals, California's fire season wreaks more havoc every year, and record-setting storms are tearing through our communities like never before.

Scientists tell us we have 10 years left to dramatically reduce emissions. We have no room for meek half-measures wrapped up inside giant handouts to the fossil fuel industry.

We deserve a world without fossil fuels. A world in which workers and communities thrive and our shared climate comes before industry profits. Working together, I know we can make it happen. We have no time to waste.

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