The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues. Listen and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
The world has been watching in horror at the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Author and environmental activist Bill McKibben argues this is a war fueled by fossil fuels. “If you want to stand with the brave people of Ukraine, you need to find a way to stand against oil and gas,”he wrote in The Guardian.
McKibben is the co-founder of the global climate justice group 350.org and Third Act, a new group focused on activism by older Americans. He says that the way to bring down “petrostate autocrats” like Vladimir Putin is for the U.S. and Europe to quickly slash their dependence on fossil fuels.
“President (Joe) Biden should immediately invoke the Defense Production Act to get American manufacturers to start producing electric heat pumps in quantity, so we can ship them to Europe where they can be installed in time to dramatically lessen Putin’s power,” McKibben said.
In the same week that the Russian invasion has been unfolding, the world’s top scientists released a climate change report that it characterized as “an atlas of human suffering.”
McKibben talks about the confluence of war and climate change, and ways to confront both urgent crises in this week’s Vermont Conversation.
