The hottest election night event EVER
The hottest election night event EVER
HEATED and The Phoenix are partnering up for a special climate-focused election livestream tonight. Plus, week 5 book club news.
We’ve been covering the presidential election from a climate perspective here at HEATED for more than a year. Can you believe?
In the last two months alone, we went through the climate plans of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. We were frank about the dire climate consequences of a Trump second term. We were tough on Biden when he wavered on his climate promises. We pushed the media to increase its climate coverage. We put a spotlight on the oil industry’s election influence. We revealed the connection between Trump’s extremist supporters and fossil fuel culture. We called out unchecked climate disinformation running wild on Facebook. We went over voter registration deadlines.
At this point, this community should have all the information it needs to make an informed decision by the time the polls close tonight.
The only question remaining is: what are you going to do while the results slowly start to trickle in?
You could doomscroll on Twitter. You could watch cable news. You could turn off your screens and get drunk in the bathtub.
Or, you could tune into the HEATED YouTube channel at around 6:30pm EST, where I will be doing an Election Night livestream alongside meteorologist-turned-climate journalist Eric Holthaus, founder of The Phoenix—and a bunch of other climate folks.
What’s The Phoenix?
The Phoenix is a newsletter about climate change—sort of like this one, but only if it were completely different. Because while HEATED focuses on what’s burning on our planet, The Phoenix focuses on what we can build out of the ashes.
Eric created the Phoenix because, as he says, “we need to see what we’re fighting for, not just what we’re fighting against.” So we’re the perfect partners for an Election Night climate event; a real Steve Rogers/Tony Stark vibe.
You can check out The Phoenix and subscribe for free by clicking the button below.
What’s going on at the HEATED/Phoenix Election Night livestream?
Throughout the night, Eric and I will be drinking beers, sharing election results and analysis from a climate perspective, and generally descending into madness. If results aren’t coming in and nothing’s happening, I have some big stupid Halloween costumes I did not get to wear this year that, I don’t know, perhaps I’ll feel like I want to try on. Who knows.
We also have an absolutely killer line-up of guests scheduled to join us over the course of the night. Again, a real Avengers vibe, but for climate change and also on Zoom.
Guests include, but are not limited to:
Youth activist Alexandria Villaseñor
DNC climate rabblerouser RL Miller
Climate essay prodigy Mary Heglar
NBC meteorologist John Morales
Earther managing editor/climate bad boy Brian Kahn
Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Josh Fox
Indigenous Anishinaabe activist Ashley Fairbanks
The New Republic’s Kate Aronoff
Journalist and former Bernie Sanders speechwriter David Sirota
Yassamin Ansari, who is running a climate-focused campaign for city council in Pheonix, Arizona.
Also, just to exhaust the Avengers metaphor, Eric and I don’t really know how to use our weapons, ie technology. This is the first time we’re ever doing anything like this, and we just put it together yesterday.
All of which is to say, this is probably gonna be raw as hell, but also informative and maybe even fun.
How can I tune in?
Subscribe to HEATED’s YouTube channel to get the livestream link when it goes up, which will probably be at around 4:30 p.m. EST.
We’ll get started with the actual livestream at around 6:30 p.m. EST. We’ll take breaks as we need them, and go as long as we feel like.
Once we get started, you can join the discussion in the comments on YouTube. You can also stay updated on the night by following Eric and I on Twitter. My account is here. Eric’s is here.
We hope to see you there!
All We Can Save book club: Week 5
Today’s the fourth official day of HEATED’s book club partnership with All We Can Save, an anthology of female climate wisdom edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson.
The section we’re focusing on this week is “Reshape.” Among other great essays, it includes one of my favorite pieces of climate reporting and writing of all time: Sarah Miller’s “Heaven or High Water,” where she pretends to be interested in buying high-end real estate in a part of Florida that’s being swallowed by the ocean.
You can learn more about all the section’s authors in the supplementary materials section below.
How to structure this week’s discussion
OPENING: Read 1 poem or quote from this section to open.
CHECK-IN: Share your name + something you have mended. (Circle leader should go first and model this.)
DISCUSSION: Move through 3 generous questions.
What fact about the climate crisis do you find hard to face? What makes it so hard?
How is the climate crisis challenging the meaning of home? How might we redefine it?
Where do you see necessary and effective reshaping taking place (at any scale)?
CLOSING: Read 1 poem or quote from this section to close.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS Sarah Miller
What Do We Do With Feelings Now That They Don’t Matter Anymore? Essay, Longreads, 2020.
The Wider Path, Essay, Commune, 2020.
The world is going to hell. Here’s how I’m coping as California burns around me, Essay, Insider, 2019.
Patricia Smith
VS Live with Patricia Smith, Video, 2019.
I’m trying to add music to the constant pounding, pounding, pounding, Interview, 2015.
Blood Dazzler, Poetry Collection, 2008.
Patricia Smith Reading in the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival Saturday Night Sampler, Poetry Reading, 2008.
Jainey K. Bavishi
Climate Crisis Is a Fight for Social Justice, Says Jainey K. Bavishi, Video, NowThis, 2020.
Coastal Resiliency in NYC, Podcast, The Capitol Beach, 2020.
A Livable Climate: New York City’s Plan for Adapting to Climate Change, Video, 2019.
Amanda Sturgeon
Building a Vibrant Living Future For All, Podcast, The Last Environmentalist, 2020.
Using biophilic design to heal body, mind, and soul, TEDMED, 2018.
VOTINGFor info on how, when, and where to vote in the U.S., visit vote.org. For info on candidates’ climate records, see voteclimatepac.org. Find the Sierra Club’s endorsements here.
OK, that’s all for today—thanks for reading HEATED! If you’d like to share this piece as a web page, click the button below.
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Stay hydrated, eat plants (I like bananas), do push-ups, and VOTE!!!
Sleep? What's that? And, tonight is going to be a very long night, I suspect.........
Avengers? Incredibles? All of the above!