Yes, Climate Still Matters. Here's How It Connects to Every Other Crisis in the World Today.
Lately I've been experiencing something I suspect a lot of other climate reporters—and really anyone who works on climate—has also been feeling: a big ol' case of the "who the fuck cares?" with a heaping side of "what difference does it make?" It's hard to feel like lobbying against the EU's methane regulations or shutting down renewable energy projects, or even the senseless buildout of datacenters to power AI nobody wants is important compared to citizens being shot in the street for peaceful protest, capitals being bombed, and the threat of World War III or a second U.S. Civil War looming large.
And I'll admit, it caught me flatfooted for a while. Maybe you too? But over the past week things have slotted into place a bit more for me. There have been a few catalysts: Digging into the regional oil and gas politics surrounding the U.S. attack on Venezuela and realizing just how much of an oil war that is; listening to the way some politicians and police have justified the violent repression of protest in the U.S. and hearing in it clear echoes of the anti-protest backlash that began with the fossil fuel industry's overreaction to the Standing Rock protests; a conversation with a Dutch reporter recently who said, "you know, in Europe, we are stuck between these two superpowers and the overwhelming feeling is we better let them shoot some carbon up into the atmosphere or we'll all be speaking Russian or English."
All of it made me realize that while yes, the details of this or that environmental policy might seem quite trivial in the face of the collapse of democracy all around us, these two things—the climate crisis and the democracy crisis—are deeply interconnected. I know this, you know this, but sometimes it helps to remind ourselves of just how direct the connection is. For me, it helps to have visuals, so I started throwing together a little chart showing the fossil fuel roots of a non-exhaustive list of modern political problems. I figured it might be helpful to share:
None of which is to say, by the way, that climate folks should take a "stay in your lane" approach to what's happening in the world, or force a climate lens on everything. I've always been quite vocal about the fact that if you want to see climate action, you should also want democracy and equality, peace and justice. All of these fights are the same fight, not left to right but top to bottom, all of it a fight for survival.
Related Reading, Watching and Listening
- The Climate Atrocity Paradigm, by Gaspard Lemaire, in Earth System Governance (Dec 2025) - New study says we need new language to talk about climate harms.
- Families Like Ours - I have been thinking about this show ever since former San Luis Obispo mayor (and Drilled S6 voice!) recommended it to me. It's directed by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (who also directed Festen, or The Celebration), and sets a family drama against the backdrop of the climate crisis.
- Drilled Venezuela coverage:
- UN Expert Fernanda Hopenhaym walks Nina Lakhani through the legal risks companies are taking by dealing in illegally seized Venezuelan oil.
- A detailed timeline and in-depth analysis of the U.S.-Venezuela-Guyana triangle
- How the U.S. invasion of Venezuela violates the ICJ climate ruling.
- Oscar Berglund on what the continued criminalization of climate protest looks like now and how it's linked to the response to other protests today:
- Flawed economic models mean climate crisis could crash global economy, experts warn, by Damian Carrington for The Guardian. New research from Carbon Tracker builds on previous reports showing just how much of the global economy is built on flawed economic models that don't accurately account for climate impacts.
