climate crisis Archives

Climate Strike Davis Plans Central Park Camp-out to Call-out the Crisis

by Cool Davis Staff September 23, 2020

Noon on Friday to Noon Saturday Central Park, Davis (5th and B St.)

Advocacy, Community, Events

Per Capita Davis: Sickness and the pandemic

by John Mott-Smith April 28, 2020

It may be just my opinion, but it seems there’s a sickness that has taken hold in our country. There’s also a pandemic. The pandemic attacks the lungs. The sickness attacks the brain. The pandemic interferes with breathing. The sickness interferes with thinking. The pandemic…

Community, Inspiration

Per Capita Davis: Two elephants in the room

by John Mott-Smith April 14, 2020

At the risk of inflicting my internal turmoil on you, I confess to a huge ambivalence in making any connection between the pandemic and the climate crisis. Do we really need two elephants in the room at the same time? One that has been with…

Community, Inspiration

Per Capita Davis: Big changes are coming our way

by John Mott-Smith January 17, 2020

When I approached The Enterprise 12 years ago about writing a column on what was then referred to as “climate change” I struggled to find an appropriate title for the column. While watching Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” I was struck by how many times…

Community, Inspiration

My View: Climate Crisis Coming Sooner Than We Thought

by David Greenwald August 28, 2019

The fires have attracted worldwide attention to the peril that could hit this planet if the Amazon succumbs to an ecological disaster. But as a Washington Post editorial this week makes clear – this isn’t just about fires. The Post points out: “ONE OF the easiest ways…

Climate Impacts

Per Capita Davis: A change is coming in how we talk about climate

by John Mott-Smith July 24, 2019

Climate scientists, even a half-century ago, predicted adverse effects from “climate change,” including sea-level rise, an increase in global temperature and melting of glaciers, to name a few. But right from the get-go, they predicted that among the first and most obvious “changes” would be…

Climate Impacts

Per Capita Davis: Evidence pushes us toward urgency

by John Mott-Smith January 11, 2019

The Dec. 5 “Per Capita” reported on recent studies by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. National Climate Assessment and was basically bad news, with calls for urgent action to avoid catastrophic effects of the Climate Crisis. The Dec. 19…

Climate Impacts

Per Capita Davis: The media could use change of language

by John Mott-Smith October 19, 2018

I hardly know where to start. One of my main conundrums in writing this column has been, over time, whether to “sound the alarm” and stress the urgency of action and the enormous potential dire consequences, or to try to look at the bright side,…

Climate Impacts, Community, Inspiration

Per Capita Davis: The ‘tipping point’ revisited

by John Mott-Smith September 21, 2018

Back in 2007 when I began writing these articles there were a few terms that captured the discussion about global warming. One was the term in the prior sentence: “global warming.” It may have been adequate at the time, but the soft, fuzzy, cozy, under-a-blanket…

Climate Impacts, Community, Inspiration

Feeling the heat

by John Mott-Smith January 20, 2013

This column by Cool Davis member, John Mott-Smith is cross-posted from the Davis Enterprise. I find it difficult at times to get my mind around the scope or scale of global warming. We speak about this issue as affecting the “planet” or the “atmosphere” or…

Climate Impacts