This essay was originally published in the Climate Newsletter of WFAE.Get weekly climate news delivered directly to your inbox by registering here.
What is the best way to start a conversation about climate change? It’s the central query in Billy Talen’s portrayal of the satirical evangelical climate preacher Reverend Billy. A few hours prior to his scheduled performance in Charlotte’s PNC Music Pavilion, I had a conversation with him. Talen and his Stop Shopping Choir are Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts’ opening act on their Love Earth tour, which kicked off its American leg in Charlotte last week.
In order to achieve this, I will be yelling and we will be singing: We must begin bouncing around, being frightened, coming up with new methods to relate to one another, and knocking on doors and chatting,” Talen stated.
As individuals retreat into the present to avoid the future, Talen believes that excessive materialism is the root of the issue. Our media diet also reflects this brand of consumption. A new media style arises from the continuous absorption in a flow of visuals, emotions, and storylines that need little focus to follow.
Immediacy, as defined by Anna Kornbluh in Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism, responds to the impending climate apocalypse with a style that is firmly rooted in the present, whereas the French absurdists Camus, Sartre, and Ionesco responded to the utter horror of World War II with nihilism. Extremity; urgency; presence only, no future. She writes, “Party before the lights come up.”
According to a 2024 Yale Climate Opinion Survey, Americans typically consider global warming to be an issue that will likely affect other people in the future. The majority of us think that the nation should progressively wean itself off of fossil fuels in order to eventually become carbon neutral by, say, 2050. For another generation, another legislature, and another Duke Energy CEO, it’s a date that’s comfortably out of reach.
We’re working on this statewide group project with fewer milestones than my master’s thesis because Democratic representatives Carla Cunningham, Nasif Majeed, and Shelly Willingham recently joined Republicans in North Carolina to repeal our state’s interim 2030 carbon pollution reduction target. The initial aim of reducing carbon pollution in North Carolina by 70% of 2005 levels by 2030 was not made at random. Instead of serving as a standard, it was a significant climate goal in and of itself. The Paris Climate Agreement’s demands to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius were immediately addressed by it.
We are 1.28 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures as of 2024.
According to statistics, most North Carolinians don’t think about climate change very much, if at all. According to the same Yale survey, only 36% of North Carolinians discuss climate change at least occasionally, which is the national average, and less than half of them say they have personally felt the effects of global warming. Though I’ve observed a few noteworthy exceptions, I imagine that even fewer intentionally make decisions in their lives that directly address or contribute to climate change.
Alice Scott, a small business owner, stated, “I always believed that climate change was in the future or just a few more years away.” During Hurricane Helene, her painting studio in the River Arts District of Asheville flooded. I realized it’s here after going through this event. Now is the time. And it will continue to occur.
Scott joined over thirty other speakers at Asheville’s Highland Brewing in June to urge the EPA to maintain its federal climate regulations. Among them was Melissa Booth, a lecturer at Warren Wilson College. She had relocated from the Georgia coast to western North Carolina in order to escape the escalating tides and intensifying tropical storms.
According to Booth, there are no longer any climate havens.
Information overload
I understand your desire to block out the deluge of negative news. From the moment we wake up until our heads hit the pillow, humans are inundated with information.
The attention industry has overtaken us. advertising that is overdone. “Virtual reality, pixelated,” Talen added. All day long, it permeates every sensation we have.
The desire to disassociate is exacerbated by the fact that many people believe that things are going well right now. In a world designed to keep us busy and productive, if not happy, many of us are either satisfied (or complacent). We can choose from a variety of restaurants and gyms, most of which are likely chains, and few of them serve anything other than our need to maximize.
We are supposed to adapt to climate change in this way. Distractions abound to keep us occupied. Severance’s second season is nominated for an Emmy. Elon Musk and President Trump’s bromance is in ruins. Trump is criticized by podcaster Joe Rogan for the Epstein files.
Advertising is the siren’s song that plays in the background the entire time, gently urging us to plug in and ignore the never-ending barrage of trauma. Instagram turns into a patchwork of incompatible, disjointed worlds. The killing of seven journalists over the weekend by Israel, an ally of the United States, may be explained by one square. You then purchase a full Canadian tuxedo from Sydney Sweeney. A square then claims that a heatwave struck southern Europe, causing extensive fires. That was followed by a post explaining that the Sydney Sweeney commercial that was trying to sell you blue jeans was actually cleverly veiled white nationalist propaganda. Everything is given the same size square and platform, including famine and genocide, jeans and sex. If not equity, then equality. Every post counts.
Talen, also known as Reverend Billy, aims to break what he refers to as the low-grade hypnosis of shopping by holding protest concerts with his Stop Shopping Choir at banks, stores, and other locations that can disturb the retail experience.
According to Talen, if people are startled out of their shopping, they are momentarily open and may be amused, irritated, or even enraged.
Climate conversations
Some Americans are talking about the climate issue even if the typical American doesn’t deal with it every week. With its Climate Coverage Champion award, the Charlotte branch of the Citizens Climate Lobby continues to recognize meteorologists who inform the public about climate change. Brandon Lawson of WJZY, this year’s winner, hosted episodes of Pinpoint Weather University, which covers subjects including the Atlantic hurricane season, Texas’s Fourth of July floods, and how fishing becomes more difficult in warmer waters.
The winner of last year’s prize, Brittany Van Voorhees of WCNC, recently spoke on Charlotte Talks on how North Carolina’s high humidity has prevented temperature changes from being as sharp as those in other regions of the world.
According to Van Voorhees, warmer temperatures need less energy when the air is drier. In fact, thirty years ago in Charlotte, you had a higher chance of hitting 100 [degrees Fahrenheit].
Even though it was harder to reach 100 degrees, last month’s average temperature in the city was 4.6 degrees higher than usual.
It may be underreported, but 36% of North Carolinians say they occasionally talk about climate change. We can easily talk about climate change without even recognizing it. For instance, cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae blooms, are the food source for N. fowleri, the brain-eating amoeba and the source of my primary fear aside from dementia brought on by microplastics. Once contracted, amoebic meningoencephalitis—the illness that results from an amoeba eating your brain—has death rates that are comparable to those of rabies. Fortunately, it is extremely rare, like rabies, with only 167 occurrences reported between 1962 and 2024.
But warm, pure water is ideal for the amoeba’s growth. The same is true of its food source, and as the temperature warms further, federal regulators anticipate a rise in dangerous algal blooms. When I claim that I’m afraid a single-celled organism would devour my brain, I’m actually expressing that I’m afraid I won’t feel secure swimming in a lake if fossil fuels are continued to be used.
In other words, coal and natural gas combustion is the end result of pulling on any thread for an extended period of time. Either hopeful realism or nihilism may result from that information, depending on how you interpret it. Greta Thunberg or Camus. Naomi Klein or Sartre.You no longer exist, my dear, since you no longerAccording to Ionesco, who plagiarized Descartes, “you don’t exist, my dear, because you don’t act.”Ultimately, if there are many issues, there must be an equal number of solutions. I definitely hope so, at least when it comes to brain-eating amoebas.
All in this together
It’s easy to feel helpless when faced with hungry amoebas or Democrats who defect to override climate legislation. We may be discussing climate solutions more than we realize, though, much like the issue itself. Talen, when I asked him what values he preaches about during his climate sermons as Reverend Billy, pointed to the gift economy that takes place when a superstorm hits.
When the survivors approach one another, they invariably ask, “What can I do for you?” How are you? Can you walk? You’re afraid? Give me a hug. I’ve got some leftover food, Talen said.
It s the story of western North Carolina after Helene. In Asheville, Lansing, Linville and many other cities and towns that flooded last fall, reports of neighbors helping neighbors sprang up. They coordinated helicopter supply drops, ran groceries on ATVs to hollers and connected homes to electric generators. Even now, 10 months after the storm, local nonprofits are distributing resources to repair damaged infrastructure and get their neighbors back home.
Part of the local solution to climate change parallels the same mechanisms that alleviate labor abuse, poverty and food insecurity. Sometimes, it involves group purchasing programs for rooftop solar, a salve if not a solution for prohibitive electricity bills. Other times, it looks like H2A visa workers banding together to demand heat relief. Some solutions cost nothing. Buy less, compost more, drive less. At the very least, get to know your neighbors.
Talen sat across from me at a picnic table outside the arena. He was about to go on stage for soundcheck, and I asked him, as Reverend Billy, to share some of the evening s sermon with me:
We re in this together.
We’re doing this together.
We’re burning together.
We’re drowning together.
We’re going extinct together.
We’re surviving together.
We’re loving together. We’re loving together. We’re loving together.
Don’t isolate when it comes to the Earth.
Read more:Rev. Billy wants you to ‘Stop Shopping’ for the climate
Articles mentioned:
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Israeli strike kills journalists in Gaza City, worsening the death toll for the media
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Western North Carolina petitions EPA to keep federal climate protections in place after Helene
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How the climate crisis is fueling the spread of a brain-eating amoeba
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Duke Energy announces nearly $1 billion in profits, plans to merge its two main NC utilities
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Local organizers visit NC farms to educate migrant workers on heat safety
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New group-purchase program aims to lower the cost of solar energy installations in Mecklenburg County
