Climate Change Activist: 'Misinformed Views Have Been Becoming Increasingly Fringe'

As for skeptics of climate change, Wen Stephenson said he’s “not terribly worried about getting a question like that, especially around here, as those kinds of misinformed views have become, thankfully, increasingly fringe.”

Stephenson, a former editor at The Atlantic and the Boston Globe, now a climate activist, independent journalist and author, said the very premise of his upcoming discussion and book of the same name - “What We’re Fighting For NOW is Each Other” - is that “we can trust the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists (97 percent of climate scientists published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, along with all the major national scientific organizations on earth) that the current rapid warming of the planet is due primarily to human activity, the largest driver being the burning of fossil fuels. I’m not going to debate established science.”

“What We’re Fighting for NOW is Each Other” takes place on Friday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m. in the Wayland High School auditorium. It’s part of the Walden Forum Discussion series.

In 2010, Stephenson responded with his book to what he calls “the spiritual crisis at the heart of the climate crisis.” He was a successful mainstream journalist and left his career to join the climate movement, and write his book. The activist argues that the movement is not unlike great human rights and social justice struggles of the past, rather than environmentalism.

“I’ll be speaking about my book, ‘What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Climate Justice,’ which is coming out from Beacon Press on Oct. 6,” Stephenson told Patch. “It grew out of articles I wrote over the past few years for The Nation magazine, where I’m a contributing writer, and other publications.”

He says his lectures, and writing, is geared toward people who are deeply concerned about climate change, and ready to engage on it politically - or ready to deepen their engagement.

“Because, given the magnitude and urgency of the climate crisis, any serious response is going to require far-reaching political change,” said Stephenson. “That means building a strong grassroots movement for serious climate action -- the kind of movement we saw on display last September, when 300,000 to 400,000 people flooded the streets of New York in the People’s Climate March. And the kind of movement we see growing here in Massachusetts, with grassroots networks like 350Mass (which I helped start) and others.”

“My book’s message on climate justice -- emphasizing the disproportionate impact of climate change on the world’s poorest, who’ve done little or nothing to cause it,” he said, “and on today’s young people and future generations -- has a lot in common with what Pope Francis is saying (though I’m not Catholic).”

The evening begins with live music, followed by the lecture/forum, and then a meet and greet with refreshments with the guest speaker.