My latest column for Library Journal was almost just three words long.
When I first pitched my latest column idea to Library Journal Executive Editor Meredith Schwartz it went a little something like this: “What if it just said “Climate Action Now.” and we just repeated that line a few hundred times?” She politely steered me in a different direction…
“Climate scientists predict we will look back on the years 2020 and 2021 and think to ourselves, “Those were the good old days.” Record-setting heat, record amounts of scorched earth thanks to wildfires, record numbers of tropical storms, and a record number of freak natural disasters like derechos—that’s what 2020 had to offer. And 2021 hasn’t been much better.
In October, the national security community, including the departments of Homeland Security and Defense as well as the National Security Council and director of national intelligence, issued reports on the climate risks we face. They researched what the inevitable food shortages caused by climate change will mean for national security, what fights for clean drinking water will do to communities and nations, and the effects of the predicted massive climate migration by folks displaced by climate change.
In September, more than 200 medical journals, including The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the British Medical Journal, issued an unprecedented joint statement, “Call for Emergency Action to Limit Global Temperature Increases, Restore Biodiversity, and Protect Health,” urging world leaders to cut heat-trapping emissions to avoid “catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse,” naming climate change as the “greatest threat” to global public health. “Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with COVID-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.”
Also in September, thanks to Executive Order 14008, 24 major federal agencies issued adaptation and resilience plans that outline the steps each agency will take to ensure their facilities and operations adapt to and are increasingly resilient to climate change impacts. Identified risks include “rising costs to maintain and repair damaged infrastructure from more frequent and extreme weather events, challenges to program effectiveness and readiness, and health and safety risks to federal employees who work outside.” The federal government has recognized through these reports that by acting now to better manage and mitigate climate risks, they will “minimize disruptions to federal operations, assets and programs while creating safer working conditions for employees.”
There is no more time to waste. Climate action is needed NOW. Libraries should be visible leaders and partner in this effort not only to protect the assets the public has entrusted them with but also to ensure library workers and community members have the support they need, through libraries, in the face of disruption.
What does your library’s climate adaptation and resilience plan look like? If you don’t have one, you’re not alone. So, let’s get started…”
Read the full column here.