(7/17) CLIMATE CHANGE IN AN AGING SOCIETY

“Things are getting worse and worse, and better and better, faster and faster.”

-Tom Atlee

Author of The Tao of Democracy, Participatory Sustainability, Empowering Public Wisdom and Reflections on Evolutionary Activism

• The Snow Man (poem)

• Iran and Ukraine: Climate Lessons

• Denis Hayes: Eco-Elder

• What is the Ecology Crisis?

• A Climate Dream: Running Out of Things

• Overcoming Climate Denial

• Trump Talk

• Items of Interest

• Recommended Reading

• Coming Events

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

War teaches many lessons. For those of us concerned with climate change, the wars in Iran and Ukraine teach a common lesson: Get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Listen to the views of two distinguished experts on military and diplomatic issues: Timothy Snyder and Philips O’Brien.

Watch “Thinking Live with Phillips O’Brien on War in Iran and Ukraine”

Think of the parallels between Iran and Ukraine. Russia felt confident in attacking Ukraine in 2022. Trump felt attacking Iran would be a a quick victory, like Venezuela. Both wars have turned out to be longer than the attackers expected. Ukraine can now attack Russia and use its home-grown defense against drones, even offering Middle Eastern countries help again the drone from Iran. Iran controls the straight of Hormuz and charges a toll for shipping. Iran can keep the USA on defense and it has already withstood punishing attacks. US missiles are expensive while small drones are cheap. In two months used up much of the USA expensive weapons, putting America at risk around the world. Meanwhile, oil prices have gone through the roof and gas costs have gone up, along with other elements of inflation in the USA. And both Russia and Iran are reaping billions of dollars in unexpected revenues that will probably continue for years.

The big lesson for Americans? Get off fossil fuels and shift to renewables as soon as possible.

Of all the impacts of this war, and of the climate crisis -- economic, political and humanitarian – the most horrifying and shameful by far will be the expansion of the global food crisis. Famine and food insecurity already threaten human survival and political stability in vulnerable regions facing drought, flooding, desertification and conflict caused by climate change. Many of these regions rely largely on imports of basic staple foods, but the war has interrupted supplies. Russia and Ukraine together export about 30 percent of the world’s wheat and 75 percent of its sunflower oil. Ukraine’s export crop is trapped by Russia’s military blockade; Russia’s exports are curtailed by international sanctions.

“War, Climate Crisis and Famine” (from Elders Climate Action)

Denis Hayes, born in 1944, achieved prominence in 1970 when he coordinated the first Earth Day Event, which drew an estimated 20 million people around the world. Earth Day led to major environmental policy changes and Time Magazine named him “Hero of the Planet” in 1999. Today, in his eighth decade, he isn’t finished and he remains a voice for environmental action on every front.

“It’s a universal truth that people are most easily mobilized when there is a clear enemy,” said Hayes. “In the late sixties, it was pretty clear who was causing air and water pollution, because we saw smokestacks pouring into the atmosphere.”

Hayes remembers how passage of the Clean Air Act can give lessons for climate advocates today: “The Clean Air Act was an imperfect vehicle, but it did dramatically change air quality,” he says. “You can have something that looks elegant on paper, but if you can’t pass it, it doesn’t do you any good. Take the imperfect thing and move forward. We’ve got to create momentum that says, ‘We’re chipping away at this.’”

Hayes urges people today to maintain hope and to pay attention to the profound, lifesaving benefits of climate action right now.

“The ecological crisis is only an externalization an inner malaise and cannot be solved without a spiritual rebirth of Western man […] It is still our hope that as the crisis created by man’s forgetfulness of who he really is grows and that as the idols of his own making crumble one by one before his eyes, he will begin a true reform of himself, which always means a spiritual rebirth and through this rebirth attain a new harmony with the world of nature around him. Otherwise, it is hopeless to expect to live in harmony with that grand theophany which is virgin nature, while remaining oblivious and indifferent to the Source of that theophany both beyond nature and at the center of man’s being.“

From Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis in Modern Man

Here is a dream sent to me last week from a woman, mid-forties, who has long been a member of the Fridays For Future group in Palo Alto, which I am part of each week. Here is her dream:

There were complaints in the building. People in the apartment next to mine were upset about something - pests? They had called for someone from the administration to come up so they could make a report. When a woman from the office came upstairs, I opened the door of my flat and stood by, waiting as she spoke to the residents. I was worried about our water supply, I thought we might run out. I waited for a break in their conversation, and then I spoke up: “Excuse me, when you finish with them, I want to ask you about our water supply.” She barely turned her head to me, no eye contact. She continued blandly talking with them in a way that made me feel she was just going through the motions, with no intent to help. I tried again, more assertively. “I need to ask you about our water.” Again, she did not even look my way. Finally, she turned to go, heading toward the stairs. I called after her, now urgently: “What about our water? Are we going to run out?” All I saw was the back of her head as she left. She was deliberately ignoring me.

Interpretation. What if it were my dream (as we say in dreamwor)? I think of it as a message about our environment, about planet earth, about the climate crisis. It’s happening. We have multiple alternative explanations (e.g., pests), and it’s threatening. But when the experts, the authorities, come our way, we want answers. They won’t give us an answer. They don’t even hear us, don’t even look our way (”make eye contact”). Water is the essence of life. It’s actually who we are, as a physiological enterprise. Everything depends on it but the powers-that-be have no interest in the most important thing in the world.

The dreamer replied to me, saying Yes, this interpretation is right. I had understood the message of the dream. Remember always: The dream belongs to the dreamer. Dreams show us what we already know but do not yet see.

I’ve worked in the field of aging for more than 50 years, and on my birthday I received as a gift a sweatshirt saying “I thought growing old would take longer.” The birthday gift confirmed what I already had believed. I was obviously mistaken.

Denial is deep, and aging takes place without our noticing it: just like climate change. As for climate change, well, we often think, maybe it’s something for the future, or maybe for people in some vulnerable places on earth. The psychologist Per Espen Stoknes, in his book titled What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming, puts his finger on the problem:

“Climate change is perceived as happening elsewhere: the Maldives, Philippines, Arctic, or Antarctic, or in New Orleans or upper Himalayan valleys or the Bangladesh delta. It’s about ‘them,’ not ‘us.’ “

The evidence of climate change is all around us, but we do not see, we do not call out:

When springtime comes too early

When bees and butterflies disappear

When California smoke comes over New York

When atmospheric rivers drench our streets

When fireflies from childhood go away

Slowly, slowly, night thoughts come along:

What has gone wrong with our world?

What is it we must do?

Denial of Science. Trump has repeatedly called climate change “a hoax” and he acts as if he believes that. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. But he finds a way to appoint people who deny science—like RFK, Jr.—to senior positions in the cabinet.

The Cost That Trump Has Handed Us. Last month, The National Resource Defense Council has now documented 500 different anti-environmental attacks by the Trump administration. That is, around one harmful action every day since Trump returned to office in 2025. That works out to roughly one harmful action every day since President Trump returned to office in 2025.

New Climate Website. Trump shut down the old climate.gov website. But now a new website essentially recreates the Climate.gov dashboard, allowing anyone to access the same datasets and sources, as well as expert blogs. Trump failed, so we can spread the word about the new website:

Trump and Fossil Fuel Companies. Let’s look back a year, to March, 2025. Here’s a question: “What Oil Executives Want From President Trump” Here’s the answer: Tariffs, tax credits and deregulation are among the industry’s top priorities. (NY Times). See also: Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan (Simon & Schuster, 2026).

The Republican Party: What Went Wrong? I grew up in the 1950s, and Dwight Eisenhower was the first President I canremember. We can’t blame Eisenhower for climate change. But was Eisenhower a Republican like Donald Trump? Look at the facts and make up your mind:

Not Weather but Climate. The four horsemen of climate apocalypse are here: heat dome, wildfire, drought, and flood. “Air quality plummets in 20 US states as smoke from Canadian wildfires spreads”

Fossil Fuels. “The American epoch of oil is collapsing. What comes next could be ugly”

Nature. See “The Measure of Flourishing.” The Nature Flourishing Index includes nature. Finally a look at the world more than the GDP.

Are the Seasons Changing? Yes, they are: “Seasonal patterns that farmers trusted for generations have suddenly turned unpredictable”

Grief and Rage. “How to cope with climate grief (and rage)”

Data Centers. “New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium” New York State is the first, but it may not be the last.

Remembering Earth: A Spiritual Ecology, by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee (Shambhala, 2026).

What If It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World, by Jordan Thomas (Riverhead Books, 2025).

How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going, by Vaclav Smil (Penguin, 2022)

The Living-Green Myth: The Promise and Limits of Lifestyle Environmentalism by Michael Maniates (Polity, 2025). See also: https://bookshop.org/p/books/does-living-green-make-a-difference-michael-maniates/343e1bae783b31f7

DEMOCRACY: Power Democracy Webinar (July 22, 2026, 3 pm PT). Who really powers democracy? The rules for your power bill, the grid, and clean energy are set by people you’ve probably never voted for. We need to change that. On Zoom and hosted by Third Act

ECO-GERONTOLOGY: “Aging, Care & Our Relationship with Nature” (July 23, 2026, 4 pm PT). Aging, care, nature connectedness and regenerative futures.

CLIMATE AND AGING: Interest Group Meeting (July 23, 2026, 11 to 12 noon, ET). Hosted by the Gerontological Society of America.

SMART SURFACES: “Cost Effectively Cooling Cities While Slowing Climate Change” (July 28, 2026, 4 pm PT). On Zoom; sponsored by Elders Climate Action.

BILL MCKIBBEN: “Monthly Dose of Climate Hope! with Bill McKibben” (Aug. 12, 2026, 4 to 5 pm ET). Live Zoom event sponsored by Climate Action Now

EMBRACING ELDERHOOD. “Embracing Elderhood on Behalf of All Life” (Sept-Oct., 2026) This is not a free offering. It’s an on-line offering on a sliding scale and it is offered by someone I know personally: Constance Washburn. It is guided by the “Work That Reconnects” and inspired by the late Joana Macy. More information at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfxjYeOj09w77cqFy6DlJZi0OI6122s7Nz87liR5KgbYnvFFA/viewform

More background about the Spiral Process behind this work. More about Constance Washburn at: www.constancewashburn.com

Thanks for reading. If you found some of this helpful, please leave a comment below.

From Harry (Rick) Moody

For more about this book or other newsletters, contact H.R. Moody at hrmoody@yahoo.com