September’s Best Environmental Books: The Green New Deal, Vanishing Species and Effective Activism
06 September 2019
Popular
The Revelator
September has arrived, summer vacation season is over and it's time to get stuff done — not just for the month ahead but for the future of the planet.
<p>With that in mind, this month sees the publication of an amazing array of books on a wide range of environmental issues, covering everything from <a href="ps://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">climate change</a> to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/amazon-rainforest" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">burning rainforests</a> to protecting our water. We've combed through the catalogs to pick the 13 best new eco-books coming out in September, including titles from an impressive team of experts and award-winning authors. Check out our list below, pick the ones that are best for you or your family, and read up on new ideas for fixing what we've broken — then get to work.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/john/" target="_blank">John R. Platt</a> is the editor of The Revelator. An award-winning environmental journalist, his work has appeared in Scientific American, Audubon, Motherboard, and numerous other magazines and publications. </em><br/></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/environmental-books-september-2019/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>
The Green New Deal:
<p>To start off our list, this month brings not one but two books about the need for a Green New Deal.</p><p>First up, <em>Shock Doctrine</em> author Naomi Klein offers us <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/On-Fire/Naomi-Klein/9781982129910" target="_blank"><em>On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal</em></a><em>. </em>This collection of new and previously published reports examines the state of the environment around the world, ranging from the Great Barrier Reef to the Vatican. And as you'd expect from a firebrand like Klein, this impassioned, justice-oriented book presents a call for immediate transformation of the systems that have produced the climate crisis (and so many other crises along the way).</p><p>Taking a slightly different path, economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin brings us <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250253217" target="_blank"><em>The Green New Deal</em></a>, a cautionary tale that warns the world economy (if not the world itself) will fall apart in under ten years if we don't take immediate action to mothball extractive energy technologies. Subtitled "Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth," Rifkin's book serves as a call for world governments to decarbonize their economies, post-haste.</p>Wildlife and Conservation:
<p><em><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-missing-lynx-9781472957344/" target="_blank">The Missing Lynx: The Past and Future of Britain's Lost Mammals</a> </em>by Ross Barnett — Eurasian lynx were wiped out in Britain 1,300 years ago, but there's now an effort to bring them back to their old stomping grounds. Could other species, even megafauna, soon follow? Barnett look at the lynx and other extinct British species to see what we've lost following their disappearance from the ecosystem and what we might gain from rewilding projects. Along the way, he asks if these types of projects should even be conducted at all. That's a timely, important question in this era when we're even talking about brining extinct species like the mammoth back to life.</p><p><a href="https://us.orcabook.com/Gone-is-Gone-P11995.aspx" target="_blank"><em>Gone Is Gone: Wildlife Under Threat</em></a> by Isabelle Groc — Aimed at teenage readers, this profusely illustrated and thoroughly researched book looks at <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" rel="noopener noreferrer">endangered species</a> around the world — and what we can do to help them. Conservation icon Jane Goodall provides the foreword. (For juvenile readers, check out a similarly themed book out this month: <a href="https://www.runningpress.com/titles/louise-mcnaught/survival/9780762496396/" target="_blank"><em>Survival</em></a> by artist Louise McNaught and writer Anna Claybourne.)</p><p><a href="https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/products/national-geographic-the-photo-ark-vanishing" target="_blank"><em>Vanishing: The World's Most Vulnerable Animals</em></a> by Joel Sartore — Critically endangered and extinct-in-the-wild species get the spotlight in this stunning, 400-page photography book, the latest in Sartore's "Photo Ark" project for <em>National Geographic</em>. This could be your last chance to see many of these species, so take some time to linger on each image and reflect on the very real faces of impending extinction.</p>Climate Change:
<p><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374712525" target="_blank"><em>We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast</em></a> by Jonathan Safran Foer — If we want to fight climate change, we (individually and collectively) need to put down the breakfast sausages and rethink many of our other agricultural products. A stylishly written and thought-provoking book from the author of <em>Everything Is Illuminated</em> and <em>Eating Animals</em>.</p><p><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374718527" target="_blank"><em>The Geography of Risk: Epic Storms, Rising Seas, and the Cost of America's Coasts</em></a> by Gilbert M. Gaul — Hoo boy, the coastal destruction coming our way due to climate change and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species">sea-level rise</a> is going to be <em>expensive</em>…and taxpayers will carry the costs. Gaul, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, recounts the history of coastal development (or over-development, to be precise) and lays out the case for changing the way we regulate and subsidize risky construction.</p>Activism and Environmental Justice:
<p><a href="https://ecwpress.com/products/whose-water-is-it" target="_blank"><em>Whose Water Is It, Anyway? Taking Water Protection Into Public Hands</em></a> by Maude Barlow — One of the world's most notable water-justice activists provides a step-by-step guide to help communities keep themselves from going dry due to the actions of irresponsible companies and governments. (Check out our <a href="https://therevelator.org/barlow-water-privatization/" target="_blank">interview with Barlow</a>.)</p><p><a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/unearthing-justice" target="_blank"><em>Unearthing Justice: How to Protect Your Community From the Mining Industry</em></a> by Joan Kuyek — Covering everything from how to stop a new mining project to figuring out how to clean up an abandoned mine, this important book offers activists a primer for taking on all manner of extractive industries that can harm human health and the environment.</p><p><a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/salmon-and-acorns-feed-our-people/9780813584195" target="_blank"><em>Salmon and Acorns Feed Our People: Colonialism, Nature and Social Action</em></a> by Kari Marie Norgaard — A sociological look at North American colonialism, focusing on the Karuk Tribe of northern California and their political struggles for environmental justice and food sovereignty.</p>And Two More for Good Measure:
<p><a href="http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9780745687391" target="_blank"><em>Waste</em></a> by Kate O'Neill — A simply titled book about a very complex issue: What do we do with all of our <em>stuff</em>? From <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/food-waste" rel="noopener noreferrer">food waste</a> to plastic recycling to the remnants of our ubiquitous electronics, O'Neill examines the politics and future of what we throw away.</p><p><a href="https://islandpress.org/books/rainforest" target="_blank"><em>Rainforest: Dispatches From Earth's Most Vital Frontlines</em></a> by Tony Juniper — A gorgeous, thoughtful and increasingly necessary book examining the roles that rainforests around the world play in regulating our planetary systems. Juniper, a noted environmentalist who has spent decades working on rainforest conservation, devotes a good portion of this book to the threats that human-caused fires pose to these essential ecosystems — a timely topic, to say the least.</p><p>That's our list for this month, but don't stop here: You can find dozens of other recent eco-books in the <a href="https://therevelator.org/tag/revelator-reads/" target="_blank">"Revelator Reads" archive</a>.</p>
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Trump Pushed for Mining Project That Could Destroy Alaska Salmon Ecosystems, Despite EPA Opposition
12 August 2019
Popular
Salmon swim in the Naknek River in the Bristol Bay Borough of Alaska. Natalie Fobes / Corbis Documentary / Getty Images Plus
By Jon Queally
"Gold over life, literally."
That was the succinct and critical reaction of Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein to reporting on Friday that President Donald Trump had personally intervened — after a meeting with Alaska's Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy on Air Force One in June — to withdraw the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) opposition to a gold mining project in the state that the federal government's own scientists have acknowledged would destroy native fisheries and undermine the state's fragile ecosystems.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">So Trump meets Alaska's governor in his airplane and agrees to push through a goldmine that had been stopped b/c it will devastate salmon habitat. This at a time that orcas are already starving death. Salmon carry entire ecosystems on their backs. Gold over life, literally. <a href="https://t.co/QcT2UosP0g">https://t.co/QcT2UosP0g</a></p>— Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein) <a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/status/1159975077666066434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Based on <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/us/epa-alaska-pebble-mine-salmon-invs/index.html" target="_blank">reporting</a> by CNN that only emerged Friday evening, the key developments happened weeks ago after Trump's one-on-one meeting with Dunleavy — who has supported the copper and gold Pebble Mine project in Bristol Bay despite the opposition of conservationists, Indigenous groups, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon">salmon</a> fisheries experts, and others.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The EPA told staff scientists that it was no longer opposing a controversial Alaska mining project that could devastate one of the world's most valuable wild salmon fisheries, just one day after President Trump met with Alaska's governor, CNN has learned <a href="https://t.co/vJmjAYfSw4">https://t.co/vJmjAYfSw4</a> <a href="https://t.co/TFGjPxSeAR">pic.twitter.com/TFGjPxSeAR</a></p>— CNN (@CNN) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1159977633859473409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>CNN reports:<br></p><blockquote>In 2014, the project was halted because an EPA study found that it would cause "complete loss of fish habitat due to elimination, dewatering, and fragmentation of streams, wetlands, and other aquatic resources" in some areas of Bristol Bay. The agency invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act that works like a veto, effectively banning mining on the site.</blockquote><p>"If that mine gets put in, it would ... completely devastate our region," Gayla Hoseth, second chief of the Curyung Tribal Council and a Bristol Bay Native Association director, told CNN. "It would not only kill our resources, but it would kill us culturally."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">EPA just lifted a restriction blocking <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PebbleMine?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PebbleMine</a> — which would decimate 3,500+ acres of Alaskan wetlands<br><br>"Yet again, the agency charged with protecting our public health and environment is abandoning science to advance the interests of a wealthy few."<a href="https://t.co/8aCOe63eCq">https://t.co/8aCOe63eCq</a></p>— Friends of the Earth (@foe_us) <a href="https://twitter.com/foe_us/status/1158467835083010055?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>When the internal announcement was made by Trump political appointees that the agency was dropping its opposition, which came one day after the Trump-Dunleavy meeting, sources told CNN it came as a "total shock" to some of the top EPA scientists who were planning to oppose the project on environmental grounds. Sources for the story, the news outlet noted, "asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMDU1Nzg5OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNjcwODIwMH0.sV50WTX_sib2kpms_OdQZP8oNMMjkQzfAlaRvaFZFx4/img.jpg?width=980" id="951c7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fdb78957a94ab25695675b934bcfd20f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p>According to CNN:</p><blockquote>Four EPA sources with knowledge of the decision told CNN that senior agency officials in Washington summoned scientists and other staffers to an internal videoconference on June 27, the day after the Trump-Dunleavy meeting, to inform them of the agency's reversal. The details of that meeting are not on any official EPA calendar and have not previously been reported.<br>Those sources said the decision disregards the standard assessment process under the Clean Water Act, cutting scientists out of the process.<br>The EPA's new position on the project is the latest development in a decade-long battle that has pitted environmentalists, Alaskan Natives and the fishing industry against pro-mining interests in Alaska.</blockquote><p>Responding to Klein's tweet, fellow author and activist Bill McKibben — long a colleague of hers at 350.org — expressed similar contempt.</p><p>"This is one of the world's most beautiful places, with a thriving salmon run, and now we'll get some ... gold," McKibben <a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1159977178962038785" target="_blank">tweeted</a>. Trump, he added, is "President Midas."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It’s all so tragic, and criminal. <a href="https://t.co/SB02V25G9P">https://t.co/SB02V25G9P</a></p>— Bonnie Bates (@bonniebates51) <a href="https://twitter.com/bonniebates51/status/1159979125970538497?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>After being told that the decision was made, one EPA inside told CNN, "I was dumbfounded. We were basically told we weren't going to examine anything. We were told to get out of the way and just make it happen."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Pebble Mine Threatens One of the Last Great Salmon Rivers <a href="https://t.co/QAlbSueeAC">https://t.co/QAlbSueeAC</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NRDC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NRDC</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidSuzukiFDN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DavidSuzukiFDN</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateReality?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ClimateReality</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/GreenpeaceCA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GreenpeaceCA</a></p>— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/969618969253613569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/10/gold-over-life-literally-how-trump-forced-reversal-mining-project-epa-scientists?cd-origin=rss" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- EPA Likely to Approve Mine That Threatens Alaska's Largest Salmon Hatchery - EcoWatch ›
- Clean Water Act Rollback: Trump's EPA Limits States’ and Tribes’ Rights to Block Pipelines - EcoWatch ›
- Trump Admin Reverses Obama-Era Restrictions on Pebble Mine Near Alaska's Largest Salmon Nursery - EcoWatch ›
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'Huge Victory' for Grassroots Climate Campaigners as NY Lawmakers Reach Deal on Sweeping Climate Legislation
18 June 2019
Politics
Members of the NY Renews coalition gathered before New York lawmakers reached a deal on the Climate and Communities Protection Act. NYRenews / Twitter
By Julia Conley
Grassroots climate campaigners in New York applauded on Monday after state lawmakers reached a deal on sweeping climate legislation, paving the way for the passage of what could be some of the country's most ambitious environmental reforms.
<p>The legislature <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-york-climate-bill_n_5c5853d0e4b00187b55346ae" target="_blank">reached an agreement</a> just before midnight Sunday on the Climate and Communities Protection Act (CCPA), one of several climate bills state lawmakers have pushed in recent months since progressives gained momentum in their push for a federal Green New Deal.</p><p>New York's CCPA — like those passed in recent months in California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada and Washington — offers a path forward for the implementation of Green New Deal-like laws at the state level, proponents say.</p><p>"This is going to be a huge victory for the environmental justice movement in New York," author Naomi Klein tweeted, adding that some far-reaching parts of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal grew out of state legislation.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wow! This is going to be a huge victory for the environmental justice movement in NY. Almost there!! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PassTheCCPA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PassTheCCPA</a> (Fun historical note: some of the best parts of FDR's New Deal, like the Civilian Conservation Corp, were based on programs that began in NY State) <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GreenNewDeal?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GreenNewDeal</a> <a href="https://t.co/PzHED7IkvQ">https://t.co/PzHED7IkvQ</a></p>— Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein) <a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/status/1140653324460535808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>New York's CCPA calls for zero <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuel</a> emissions from utilities by 2040. By 2050, 85 percent of all energy in the state will be from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">renewable</a> sources under the legislation, with the remaining 15 percent being off-set or captured.</p><p>"By and large, this is a very big victory," Arielle Swernoff of New York Renews, a coalition that pushed to pass the bill,<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-york-climate-bill_n_5c5853d0e4b00187b55346ae" target="_blank"> told </a>the Huffington Post<em>.</em> The group counts more than 100 groups in its membership, including national groups like 350.org and Friends of the Earth as well as local organizations like Saratoga Unites and Syracuse United Neighbors.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🚨 <a href="https://twitter.com/NYSenate?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYSenate</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NYSA_Majority?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYSA_Majority</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYGovCuomo</a> reached agreement to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PassTheCCPA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PassTheCCPA</a>! 🚨 THANK YOU <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveEngles?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SteveEngles</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/toddkaminsky?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ToddKaminsky</a>! <br><br>What we know: <br>✅ Sets most ambitious standards to cut emissions in US<br>✅ Invests 35%-40% of climate $ in frontline communities<br>✅ Supports workers in transition <a href="https://t.co/b16FFzcvsM">pic.twitter.com/b16FFzcvsM</a></p>— NY Renews (@NYRenews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYRenews/status/1140647387326754817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>The bill emphasizes the climate crisis's impact on low-income and marginalized communities, mandating that 35 percent of energy funding be directed to such towns and cities.</p><p>"By passing the CCPA with all its equity provisions intact, New York State can both address the climate crisis and build a more equitable economy," Assemblywoman Latrice Walker <a href="https://citylimits.org/2019/06/17/climate-change-race-justice-nys/" target="_blank">wrote </a>at City Limits<em>.</em></p><p>"Help is on the way," tweeted state Sen. Todd Kaminsky, who sponsored the legislation. "While D.C. sleeps through a crisis, New York steps up."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dear 🌎: Help is on the way. Proud to announce a deal on climate bill <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CCPA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CCPA</a>, with nation-leading carbon reductions in all sectors of economy. While DC sleeps through a crisis, NY steps up. <a href="https://twitter.com/NYRenews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYRenews</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/nylcv?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nylcv</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/nature_ny?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nature_ny</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NRDC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NRDC</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Earthjustice?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Earthjustice</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/greenwatchdogNY?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@greenwatchdogNY</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/citizensenviro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@citizensenviro</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Surfrider?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Surfrider</a> <a href="https://t.co/c39Pehg9dh">https://t.co/c39Pehg9dh</a></p>— Todd Kaminsky (@toddkaminsky) <a href="https://twitter.com/toddkaminsky/status/1140627488391008256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Members of New York Renews gathered on Monday in Albany, where lawmakers are expected to pass the legislation on Wednesday.</p><p>"We believe that we will win!" the group chanted.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We Believe That We Will Win!<br><br>Get ready for the vote folks! <a href="https://t.co/iqbmHtRv2n">pic.twitter.com/iqbmHtRv2n</a></p>— NY Renews (@NYRenews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYRenews/status/1140693818255319040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, gave credit to grassroots organizers for pressuring their state representatives to reach a deal on and pass the CCPA.</p><p>"Thank you to the frontlines for bringing this into Albany," Iwanowicz told the group gathered in the state capital. "Insiders couldn't do this by ourselves."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">"Thank you to the frontlines for bringing this into Albany. Insiders couldn't do this by ourselves. This is the biggest, the boldest, the baddest climate policy! We will take this to Washingtom and the world." Peter Iwanowitcz of <a href="https://twitter.com/greenwatchdogNY?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@greenwatchdogNY</a>. We WILL <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PassTheCCPA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PassTheCCPA</a>! <a href="https://twitter.com/NYRenews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYRenews</a> <a href="https://t.co/iQ7zEGZtGi">pic.twitter.com/iQ7zEGZtGi</a></p>— Adrien Salazar (@adrien4ej) <a href="https://twitter.com/adrien4ej/status/1140700461122695168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Beyond the benefits the CCPA has in store for New Yorkers, one climate campaigner wrote on social media, the expected passage of the bill after pressure from the NY Renews coalition bodes well for a potential federal Green New Deal in the future.</p><p>"What a massive win for the climate justice movement and the frontline communities that have fought so hard for this!" wrote Daniel Aldana Cohen, a professor at University of Pennsylvania. "If flipping a bunch of New York State senate seats and building fighting coalitions could achieve all this in a couple years — just imagine what millions of organized people in the streets and a federal Green New Deal could do."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is really amazing. Also remember the giant tenants win. If flipping a bunch of NY State senate seats and building fighting coalitions could achieve all this in a couple years—just imagine what millions of organized ppl in the streets and a federal GND could do</p>— Daniel Aldana Cohen (@aldatweets) <a href="https://twitter.com/aldatweets/status/1140651511028092928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/17/huge-victory-grassroots-climate-campaigners-new-york-lawmakers-reach-deal-sweeping?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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'Defend the Living Planet': Bold Campaign Says Healing the Earth Can Fight Climate Breakdown
04 April 2019
Climate
A new campaign launched Wednesday calls for "drawing carbon dioxide out of the air by protecting and restoring ecosystems." Nicholas Tonelli / Flickr
By Jessica Corbett
A group of activists, experts and writers on Wednesday launched a bold new campaign calling for the "thrilling but neglected approach" of embracing nature's awesome restorative powers to battle the existential crises of climate and ecological breakdown.
<p>Averting <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/08/un-experts-warn-climate-catastrophe-2040-without-rapid-and-unprecedented-global" target="_blank">catastrophic global warming</a> and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/02/industrial-farming-exploded-over-past-century-netherlands-butterfly-population" target="_blank">devastating declines</a> in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">biodiversity</a>, scientists warn, requires not only overhauling human activities that generate planet-heating emissions — like <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/16/keeping-global-warming-below-15degc-may-still-be-possible-immediate-action-new-study" target="_blank">phasing out fossil fuels</a> — but also cutting down on the carbon that is already in the atmosphere.</p><p>In a <a href="https://www.naturalclimate.solutions/the-letter" target="_blank">letter</a> to governments, NGOs, the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the <a href="https://www.naturalclimate.solutions/our-approach" target="_blank">Natural Climate Solutions</a> campaign calls for tackling these crises by not only rapidly decarbonizing economies, but also by "drawing carbon dioxide out of the air by protecting and restoring ecosystems."</p>
<div id="43250" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7GHMWM1576662713"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1113425502973308929" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Along with stopping fossil fuel emissions, we badly need to restore natural systems. Important new effort spearhead… https://t.co/tq9OPRoiR1</div> — Bill McKibben (@Bill McKibben)<a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/statuses/1113425502973308929">1554296301.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"By defending, restoring and re-establishing forests, peatlands, mangroves, salt marshes, natural seabeds, and other crucial ecosystems, very large amounts of carbon can be removed from the air and stored," the letter says. "At the same time, the protection and restoration of these ecosystems can help to minimize a sixth great extinction, while enhancing local people's resilience against climate disaster."</p><p>The letter urges the politicians, nonprofits and international bodies to support such solutions with research, funding and political commitment — and to "work with the guidance and free, prior and informed consent of indigenous people and other local communities."</p><p>The campaign also put out a short video that outlines "how nature can save us from climate breakdown."</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="67a30d3bd4b5dd39c79d749a467f14fd"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J9mjbzqqA_M?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>The video notes that "exotic and often dangerous schemes have been proposed" to reduce atmospheric carbon — referencing controversial geoengineering suggestions favored by some politicians and scientists — "but there's a better and simpler way: let nature do it for us."</p><p>Writer and environmentalist <a href="https://www.monbiot.com/" target="_blank">George Monbiot</a>, a leader of the campaign, laid out the scientific support for this approach to carbon drawdown in an <a href="https://www.naturalclimate.solutions/the-science" target="_blank">essay</a> on the campaign's website as well as in his Wednesday <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/03/a-natural-solution-to-the-climate-disaster" target="_blank">column</a> for The Guardian.</p><p>Detailing the potential impact of restoring lands worldwide, Monbiot wrote for the newspaper:</p><blockquote>The greatest drawdown potential per hectare (though the total area is smaller) is the restoration of coastal habitats such as mangroves, salt marsh and seagrass beds. They <a title="" href="https://www.biogeosciences.net/2/1/2005/" target="_blank">stash carbon 40 times faster</a> than tropical forests can. Peaty soils are also vital carbon stores. They are currently being oxidized by deforestation, drainage, drying, burning, farming, and mining for gardening and fuel. <a title="" href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71788-3_12" target="_blank">Restoring peat</a>, by blocking drainage channels and allowing natural vegetation to recover, can suck back much of what has been lost.</blockquote><p>"Scientists have only begun to explore how the recovery of certain animal populations could <a title="" href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2017.0440" target="_blank">radically change</a> the carbon balance," he acknowledged, pointing to forest elephants and rhinos in Africa and Asia and tapirs in Brazil as examples.</p><p>"Instead of making painful choices and deploying miserable means to a desirable end," Monbiot concluded, "we can defend ourselves from disaster by enhancing our world of wonders."</p><p>Key supporters of the campaign include youth climate strike leader Greta Thunberg; journalist Naomi Klein; author and activist Bill McKibben; Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann; former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed; and activist Yeb Saño,along with more than a dozen others who signed the letter.</p><p>"Healing and restoring the natural world is key to carbon drawdown," Klein tweeted Wednesday, "plus it makes life fuller and richer and can create millions of jobs."</p>
<div id="ea82a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8UBRBD1576662713"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1113486051698409474" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Proud to be part of this great call. When we think about a #GreenNewDeal we tend to focus on the built environment… https://t.co/4GLFeRLTH7</div> — Naomi Klein (@Naomi Klein)<a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/statuses/1113486051698409474">1554310736.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Despite the high profiles of many supporters, the campaign launch did not attract the attention of the corporate media.</p><p>Monbiot took to Twitter to call out broadcast outlets for failing to cover not only the climate and ecological crises, but also potential solutions like those offered by the new campaign. As he put it, "They are living in a world of their own."</p>
<div id="22473" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="82Y4PX1576662713"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1113363049795211264" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">One less than thrilling aspect: despite a concerted effort by a PR company working pro bono with us on… https://t.co/NsStc8KvWP</div> — George Monbiot (@George Monbiot)<a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/statuses/1113363049795211264">1554281411.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="84272" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6R89QB1576662713"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1113432578479013889" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">They'll reproduce a rubbish corporate press release, but not a single BBC programme has reported our exciting and w… https://t.co/CP1PKiGRos</div> — George Monbiot (@George Monbiot)<a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/statuses/1113432578479013889">1554297987.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="3eb8b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ELZD7E1576662713"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1082638579136909312" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The climate needs your help, the water needs your help, the land needs your help. Here are just some of the ways yo… https://t.co/cXC0bkJgnl</div> — Seeds&Chips (@Seeds&Chips)<a href="https://twitter.com/SEEDSandCHIPS/statuses/1082638579136909312">1546956126.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/03/bold-new-campaign-highlights-how-nature-can-save-us-climate-and-ecological-breakdown?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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'This Is a Big Deal': Warren Vows to Ban New Leases for Fossil Fuel Drilling Offshore and on Public Lands
16 April 2019
Politics
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks into a megaphone after joining striking Stop & Shop workers on April 12 in Somerville, Massachusetts. Scott Eisen / Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
Environmental activists and advocacy groups praised Sen. Elizabeth Warren Monday after she promised that if she is elected president in 2020, she will ban new fossil fuel extraction leases for federally controlled lands and waters.
<p><span></span>"It is wrong to prioritize corporate profits over the health and safety of our local communities," the Massachusetts Democrat <a href="https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-plan-for-public-lands-e4be1d88a01c" target="_blank">wrote</a> on Medium. "That's why on my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that says no more drilling — a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases, including for drilling offshore and on public lands."</p><p>"This is a really important stand to take," 350.org cofounder Bill McKibben tweeted Monday.</p><p>He thanked the senator her new policy proposal, which focuses on "keeping our public lands in public hands, and maintaining and preserving existing lands," as well as "making our public lands part of the climate solution — not the problem."</p>
<div id="9055f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4CB0N01576661683"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1117822734413848576" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This is a really important stand to take. thank you @SenWarren https://t.co/YdNgSW1Wld</div> — Bill McKibben (@Bill McKibben)<a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/statuses/1117822734413848576">1555344682.0</a></blockquote></div><p>"This is a big deal," said author and activist Naomi Klein. "We can't only talk about the things we want to add — millions of new jobs in renewables, efficiency, transit, green public housing. All that's great. But we gotta be willing to be honest about what we have to subtract too."</p>
<div id="c0e8b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="H279T51576661683"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1117862000686764033" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This is a big deal. We can't only talk about the things we want to add -- millions of new jobs in renewables, effic… https://t.co/k8IJ7btCpr</div> — Naomi Klein (@Naomi Klein)<a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/statuses/1117862000686764033">1555354044.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Celebrating Warren's "bold plan" on Twitter Monday, both 350 Action and Greenpeace USA noted the pressure it puts on other candidates in the crowded Democratic field.</p><p>"Americans want our next president to be a real climate leader, and candidates are listening," tweeted 350 Action. "Who's next?"</p>
<div id="95cdf" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0UG10I1576661683"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1117820268586598406" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Wow: @ewarren has a bold plan to #KeepItInTheGround. "On my 1st day as president, I'll sign an order that says no m… https://t.co/JH9dQJ2Gib</div> — 350 Action (@350 Action)<a href="https://twitter.com/350action/statuses/1117820268586598406">1555344094.0</a></blockquote></div><p>A <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/11/now-time-be-bold-and-unapologetic-progressives-building-unprecedented-political" target="_blank">cosponsor</a> of the Green New Deal resolution currently before Congress, Warren was one of only three 2020 Democratic candidates — along with Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) — who received checkmarks across the board on 350 Action's 2020 climate policy scorecard, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/27/warren-sanders-and-gillibrand-top-performers-2020-climate-leadership-scorecard" target="_blank">released</a> in late March.</p><p>The unveiling of Warren's public lands policy follows a series of other bold proposals from the presidential hopeful. She also <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/11/warrens-bold-new-tax-plan-would-raise-over-1-trillion-richest-biggest-us" target="_blank">has put forward plans to</a> offset tax loopholes exploited by large U.S. corporations; <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/19/warren-proposal-would-use-tax-ultra-rich-help-fund-universal-childcare-plan" target="_blank">establish</a> nationwide universal childcare; <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/27/elizabeth-warrens-plan-lift-family-farmers-includes-barring-big-ag-mega-mergers" target="_blank">help</a> family farmers compete with agricultural giants; and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/08/elizabeth-warren-praised-plan-break-tech-giants" target="_blank">break up</a> major technology companies.</p><p>Warren's approach to managing public lands comes in stark contrast to that of the Trump administration, which has <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/18/enabling-big-oil-pollute-impunity-public-lands-trump-guts-methane-restrictions" target="_blank">gutted</a> environmental protection rules and worked to expand fossil fuel extraction <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/04/trump-administration-condemned-plan-recklessly-expand-offshore-drilling" target="_blank">offshore</a> and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/08/continuing-war-california-and-planet-trump-makes-first-move-reopen-states-public" target="_blank">on public lands</a>. The senator was among those who opposed the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/11/win-big-oil-and-gut-punch-public-lands-conflict-ridden-former-lobbyist-bernhardt" target="_blank">recent confirmation</a> of David Bernhardt, a former fossil fuel lobbyist, to head Trump's Interior Department.</p><p>The Trump administration currently poses a grave threat to public lands and waters "with its casual denial of science and apparent amnesia about massive crises like the BP oil spill," Warren argued in her Medium post — but "it doesn't have to be this way. We must not allow corporations to pillage our public lands and leave taxpayers to clean up the mess."</p>
<div id="195d4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="NXRJED1576661683"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1117826269897351168" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">America’s public lands provide us with clean air and water, sustain fish and wildlife, and offer a place for millio… https://t.co/SYJ9Smbo7U</div> — Elizabeth Warren (@Elizabeth Warren)<a href="https://twitter.com/ewarren/statuses/1117826269897351168">1555345525.0</a></blockquote></div><p>While Warren's vow to impose a moratorium on drilling leases was highly praised, that wasn't the only promise she made Monday.</p><p>"As president," Warren wrote:</p><ul> <li>I will set a goal of providing 10 percent of our overall electricity generation from renewable sources offshore or on public lands.</li></ul><ul> <li>I will use my authorities under the Antiquities Act to restore protections to both [Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah] and any other national monuments targeted by this administration.</li></ul><ul> <li>I will fully fund our public land management agencies and eliminate the infrastructure and maintenance backlog on our public lands in my first term.</li></ul><ul><li>I will recruit 10,000 young people and veterans to jumpstart a 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps — and increase the budget of AmeriCorps' one-year fellowship program to fund it. This will create job opportunities for thousands of young Americans caring for our natural resources and public lands, deepening their lifelong relationship with the great outdoors.</li></ul><p>"The National Park Service is funded by taxpayers," she added, "and it's long past time to make entry into our parks free to ensure that visiting our nation's treasures is within reach for every American family."</p><p>Acknowledging that "a patchwork of ownership and access rights means that as many as 10 million acres in the West are not accessible to hunters, anglers, and other outdoor enthusiasts," she also committed to "unlocking 50 percent of these inaccessible acres, to grow our outdoor economy, help ease the burden on our most popular lands, and to provide a financial boost across rural America."</p><p>Though Warren's policy is national in nature, she also emphasized the importance of the Interior Department "meaningfully" incorporating local stakeholders, including tribal groups, in public lands management.</p><p>"America's public lands belong to all of us," she concluded. "We should start acting like it — expanding access, ending fossil fuel extraction, leveraging them as part of the climate solution, and preserving and improving them for our children and grandchildren. Together, we can manage and protect our public lands for generations to come."</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/15/big-deal-warren-vows-ban-new-leases-fossil-fuel-drilling-offshore-and-public-lands" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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Even Davos Elite Warns Humanity Is 'Sleepwalking Into Catastrophe'
17 January 2019
Insights + Opinion
Sun setting behind the Fawley Oil Refinery in Fawley, England. Clive G' / CC BY-ND 2.0
By Jessica Corbett
Ahead of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland next week—which convenes the world's wealthiest and most powerful for a summit that's been called both the "money Oscars" and a "threat to democracy"—the group published a report declaring, "Of all risks, it is in relation to the environment that the world is most clearly sleepwalking into catastrophe."
<p>While WEF <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2013/01/08/climate-change-lack-political-will-leading-global-perfect-storm-report" target="_blank">has made a habit</a> of recognizing the threat posed by the human-made <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate</a> crisis in its <em>Global Risks </em>reports—for which it has garnered some praise—author and activist Naomi Klein was quick to challenge the narrative presented in the latest <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2019.pdf" target="_blank">edition</a>, pointing out that many of the policies pushed by the very people invited to the exclusive event have driven the global crisis.</p><p>"Sleepwalking? Nah. The policies of global deregulation, privatization, unending consumption, and growth-worship that you advanced so aggressively in order to construct the Davos Class marched us here," she tweeted. "Pretty sure your eyes were wide open."</p>
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</p><div id="317bd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2ALJY51576662720"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1085586660874698754" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Sleepwalking? Nah. The policies of global deregulation, privatization, unending consumption and growth-worship that… https://t.co/Gc5tbwYinR</div> — Naomi Klein (@Naomi Klein)<a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/statuses/1085586660874698754">1547659003.0</a></blockquote></div>
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<p>While Klein—who <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/17079/this_changes_everything_naomi_klein_lessons" target="_blank">argued</a> in her 2014 book <a href="https://thischangeseverything.org/book/" target="_blank"><em>This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate</em></a> that "our economic system and our planetary system are now at war"—brought a critical eye to the report's warnings about the dangers of failing to limit global warming, others welcomed the attention given to the crucial issue.</p>
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</p><div id="a3c79" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="HPL5OB1576662720"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1085573412712574977" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The climate crisis is once again ranked as the top global risk by @WEF — after yet another year in which Mother Nat… https://t.co/LrcIEGdh2w</div> — Al Gore (@Al Gore)<a href="https://twitter.com/algore/statuses/1085573412712574977">1547655845.0</a></blockquote></div>
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</p><div id="0ef9a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="X96B4B1576662721"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1085628655622070273" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This, at the same time as #environmental risks continue to dominate @wef Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS) with… https://t.co/2jlGVLmbvL</div> — Bo Norrman (@Bo Norrman)<a href="https://twitter.com/Innovabo/statuses/1085628655622070273">1547669016.0</a></blockquote></div>
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<p>WEF's Global Risks Perception Survey solicits input from nearly 1,000 "decision-makers" across government, big business, academia and civil society, and aims to identify both short- and long-term threats to the international community.<br></p><p>Environmental threats—including <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather">extreme weather</a>, failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation, natural disasters, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/biodiversity" target="_blank">biodiversity loss</a> and ecosystem collapse, and man-made environmental disasters—dominate the top 10 lists for both likelihood and impact.<br></p><p>"Extreme weather was the risk of greatest concern, but our survey respondents are increasingly worried about environmental policy failure," the report notes, acknowledging that "<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">biodiversity</a> loss is affecting health and socioeconomic development, with implications for well-being, productivity, and even regional security."</p><p>Responding in a <a href="http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/press_releases/?341471/WWF-statement-on-WEFs-Global-Risks-Report-2019" target="_blank">statement</a>, Marco Lambertini, director general of <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_offices/wwf_international/" target="_blank">World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International</a>, said: "Recognition of the dangers posed by climate change and biodiversity loss is not enough. The science is clear: we need to see urgent and unprecedented action now."</p><p>"The consequences of not changing course are enormous not just for nature, but for humans. We depend on nature much more than nature depends on us," Lambertini added. "Global political and business leaders know that they have a major role to play in safeguarding the future of economies, businesses, and the natural resources we depend on."</p><p>Concerns about governmental failure to adequately address the climate crisis declined among "the Davos Class" after world leaders <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/11/07/america-last-us-vs-entire-world-after-syria-agrees-join-paris-accord" target="_blank">came together</a> to sign the Paris agreement, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-climatechange/failure-to-curb-climate-change-a-top-risk-davos-survey-idUSKCN1PA13J" target="_blank">according to</a> Reuters. But that changed after President Donald Trump took office and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/06/01/destructive-fossil-fuel-puppet-trump-ditches-climate-deal-fact-free-speech" target="_blank">announced</a> plans to ditch the accord, which aims to limit warming within this century to 1.5°C—a goal that experts say would require <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/16/keeping-global-warming-below-15degc-may-still-be-possible-immediate-action-new-study" target="_blank">immediately phasing out fossil fuels</a>.<br></p><p>Additionally, as Aengus Collins, the WEF report's author, told Reuters, "People ... are beginning to understand increasingly the gravity of the situation and that the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement">Paris agreement</a>, even if fully implemented, cannot be seen as a panacea."</p><p>In October, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put out a report detailing what the world could look like with that level of warming, and demanding "<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/15/morally-unacceptable-final-deal-out-cop24-sorely-lacking-urgency-and-action-climate" target="_blank">rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented</a>" systemic reforms. That report has been followed by various studies outlining how the U.S. is "<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/16/us-drilling-towards-disaster-report-warns-anything-less-urgent-green-new-deal-will" target="_blank">drilling toward disaster</a>" with <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/08/trumps-disregard-climate-threat-seen-us-carbon-emissions-surged-2018" target="_blank">fossil fuel expansion</a> while <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/15/studies-show-ice-melting-and-ocean-warming-both-happening-much-faster-previously" target="_blank">the oceans are warming</a> and ice is melting at alarming rates.</p><p>Along with rising sea levels, the crisis <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/10/demand-urgent-transformation-intensifies-new-study-shows-hotter-planet-making" target="_blank">has also featured</a> devastating hurricanes, heatwaves and wildfires. <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/28/10-costliest-climate-driven-extreme-weather-events-2018-caused-least-848b-damage" target="_blank">One analysis</a> of last year's costliest climate-driven extreme weather events estimated that the top 10 storms, droughts, fires and floods of 2018 caused at least $84.8 billion in damage, almost certainly an underestimate. Experts <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/10/demand-urgent-transformation-intensifies-new-study-shows-hotter-planet-making" target="_blank">warn</a> that as the planet warms, such events will become more common and powerful.</p><p>Despite warnings from the global scientific community and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/10/world-teeters-brink-climate-catastrophe-600-groups-demand-congress-back-visionary" target="_blank">mounting public demands</a> for a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/green-new-deal" target="_blank">Green New Deal</a>, Trump and his backers continue to <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/16/disgrace-bernie-sanders-takes-trump-epa-pick-task-claiming-climate-change-not" target="_blank">downplay the threat</a> and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/28/unconscionable-rollback-trump-epa-lays-groundwork-coal-industry-release-more-mercury" target="_blank">attack</a> climate and environmental regulations. Although the president no longer plans to attend the Davos meeting due to the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/15/bernie-sanders-world-faces-climate-crisis-95-epa-workers-furloughed-during-trump" target="_blank">government shutdown</a> he has forced over border wall funding, five members of his administration are supposedly still set to attend.</p><p>Regardless of whether the government reopens by next week, CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/15/davos-mnuchin-and-pompeo-to-lead-us-delegation-after-trump-cancels.html" target="_blank">reports</a> that "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will lead the five-strong delegation which also includes Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross; U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer; and Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination, Chris Liddell."</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="2ea5a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="OLTY951576662721"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1020040133813448704" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">5 Ways to Curb the Power of Corporations and Billionaires
@karenhunter - @AfroStateOfMind #KarenRebels
https://t.co/LRC72RPAu7</div> — SiriusXM Urban View (@SiriusXM Urban View)<a href="https://twitter.com/SXMUrbanView/statuses/1020040133813448704">1532031493.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/16/planet-heats-further-even-davos-elite-warns-humanity-sleepwalking-catastrophe" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><br></p>
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'The Battle for Paradise': Naomi Klein on Disaster Capitalism & the Fight for Puerto Rico’s Future
22 March 2018
Popular
Six months since Hurricane Maria battered the island of Puerto Rico, the island is the site of a pitched battle between wealthy investors—particularly from the technology industry—and everyday Puerto Ricans fighting for a place in their island's future.
<p>The Puerto Rican government has pushed for a series of privatization schemes, including <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/puerto-rico-prepa-2527986613.html">privatizing PREPA</a>, one of the largest public power providers in the U.S., and increasing the number of privately run charter schools and private school vouchers. </p><p>For more, we speak with best-selling author and journalist Naomi Klein, author of <em>The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism</em>. Her <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-recovery/" target="_blank">latest piece</a> for The Intercept, where she is a senior correspondent, is <em>The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Ricans and Ultrarich 'Puertopians' Are Locked in a Pitched Struggle over How to Remake the Island.</em></p><p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate </em><em><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/21/the_battle_for_paradise_naomi_klein" target="_blank">Democracy Now!</a>.</em></p>
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The Woolsey Fire seen from Topanga, California on Nov. 9. Peter Buschmann / Forest Service, USDA
By Jake Johnson
With people across the globe mobilizing, putting their bodies on the line, and getting arrested en masse as part of a broad effort to force the political establishment to immediately pursue ambitious solutions to the climate crisis, new research published on Monday provided a grim look at what the future will bring if transformative change is not achieved: colossal flooding, bigger fires, stronger hurricanes and much more.
<p>Titled "<a href="https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/" target="_blank">Explaining Extreme Events in 2017 from a Climate Perspective</a>" and published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), the series of new studies identify a total of 15 weather events that took place throughout the world last year that were made significantly more likely by the human-caused climate crisis, such as deadly heatwaves in China and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40171998" target="_blank">catastrophic flooding</a> from Uruguay to Bangladesh.</p><p>"A warming Earth is continuing to send us new and more <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather">extreme weather</a> events every year," BAMS editor-in-chief Jeff Rosenfeld said in a statement. "The message of this science is that our civilization is increasingly out of sync with our changing climate."</p><p>In contrast to the corporate media's <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/27/new-report-documents-corporate-medias-widespread-failure-cover-link-between-climate" target="_blank">systematic failure to connect the dots</a>, the new studies make the case that increasingly extreme global weather events and the climate crisis are intricately linked—and that the former will likely continue to get worse if the latter is not urgently and boldly confronted.</p><p>"These studies confirm predictions of the 1990 First [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report, which foresaw that radical departures from 20th century weather and climate would be happening now," research meteorologist and BAMS<em> </em>special editor Martin Hoerling said. "Scientific evidence supports increasing confidence that human activity is driving a variety of extreme events now. These are having large economic impacts across the United States and around the world."</p><p>According to the new research—which features the work of more than 100 scientists from ten different countries—<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-27/bom-and-nz-body-issue-joint-statement-on-marine-heatwave/9593618" target="_blank">record-shattering marine heatwaves</a> in the Tasman Sea in 2017 would have been "virtually impossible" in the absence of the climate crisis.</p><p>Additionally, researchers found the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-drought-in-east-africa_us_58b5c681e4b0658fc20f9ab3" target="_blank">drought in East Africa</a> that pushed millions to the brink of famine was made twice as likely by the climate crisis.</p><p>"People used to talk about climate change as a very complex and difficult problem of the future—something that would happen in places far away and on long time scales," Rosenfeld told the Washington Post. "But hurricanes and wildfires and bleaching and drought ... they're happening to us right now, and we face new and challenging risks of how they're going to affect us in the future."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="b5abd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2HH3XK1576663304"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="957382739103281153" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Extreme Weather a Huge Threat, Trump’s Actions Make It Worse https://t.co/90gPlvpl56 @OneWorld_News @worldresources @YaleClimateComm</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/957382739103281153">1517092806.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/10/demand-urgent-transformation-intensifies-new-study-shows-hotter-planet-making" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><br></p>
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Amazon Employees Praised for Using Shareholder Status to Demand Comprehensive Climate Plan
17 December 2018
Business
Swen Pförtner / Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
A small group of Amazon workers is receiving big praise for their efforts to force their employer to be a better steward of the planet.
<p>More than a dozen employees of the online retail behemoth who have received stock as part of their compensation are, as the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/technology/tech-workers-company-stock-shareholder-activism.html" target="_blank">reported</a>, "starting to use those shares to turn the tables on their employers" by putting forth shareholder petitions demanding that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/amazon-stock-price-1-trillion-value.html" target="_blank">trillion-dollar e-commerce company</a> craft a comprehensive plan to address the global climate crisis.</p><p>In November and December, the employees submitted identical petitions calling for the plan. As the Times outlined Sunday:</p><blockquote>Their filing appears to be the first time that tech employees have led their own shareholder proposal, according to activist investors. In the proposal, which will be voted on at Amazon's annual shareholder meeting next spring, employees asked the company's board to say how it would respond to climate change and reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.<br><br>"We realized we could use our position as employees and our power and our rights as shareholders to bring visibility of this issue to the board and the top leaders of this company," said Eliza Pan, a program manager who has worked at Amazon for five years and is one of the employees who signed on to the proposal.<br><br>Ms. Pan, who earned Amazon shares as part of her compensation package, said workers must own at least $2,000 in stock for a year to file a shareholder proposal. "We had this power, and we wanted to leverage that power," she said.<br></blockquote><p>The proposal will only move forward if it garners support from enough shareholders—most notably, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns 16 percent of the company and also happens to be the richest man in the world. But as Pan put it, "Banding together with other shareholders amplifies my voice and makes all of our voices more powerful."</p><p>Emily Cunningham, a user experience designer who also has received stock in the company and is supporting the climate proposal, said, "It's important to make change and work for change wherever you happen to be, and I happen to be an employee at Amazon." Expanding on her comments to the <em>Times</em> in a lengthy <a href="https://twitter.com/emahlee/status/1074441121391042565" target="_blank">thread of tweets</a>, Cunningham added:</p><blockquote>[Climate] change is about "HUMANITY," about justice. It's also an issue of our national security, health, safety, economy. Climate change is changing & will change everything. It's effecting everything we care about. From the devastating floods in Kerala, India to the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CampFire?src=hash" target="_blank">#CampFire</a> in CA, we're living through the climate crisis as it destroys communities and kills people living their lives. It's hitting the most vulnerable among us.<br><br>...The technology and solutions to climate change are, to a large extent, known and available. And each one of us, in whatever way we can, need to be part of the cultural shift underway to make this a political reality because we're running out of time.<br></blockquote><p>News of the shareholder petitions caught the attention of a few high-profile climate activists, including journalist Naomi Klein—who called it a "<a href="https://twitter.com/naomiaklein/status/1074482598917914624?s=21" target="_blank">very interesting development</a>"—and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, who called the Times report an "<a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1074481759532785665" target="_blank">important story</a>."</p><p>Noting that "East Antarctica <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/11/indication-whats-coming-melting-north-and-south-poles-worse-previously-thought?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">is melting</a>, animal & insect numbers <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/16/one-most-disturbing-articles-i-have-ever-read-scientist-says-study-detailing-climate" target="_blank">are plummeting</a>, [and] fires & weather <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/extreme-weather" target="_blank">are going crazy</a>," 350 Seattle encouraged readers to sign a <a href="https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/amazon-adopt-the-workers-shareholder-resolution-asking-for-a-climate-plan" target="_blank">petition</a> in support of the employees seeking an Amazon climate plan:</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="1ded7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2LUOZN1576662150"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1074461175553740800" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">East Antarctica is melting, animal & insect numbers are plummeting, fires & weather are going crazy...& employees t… https://t.co/H7CMcRfFMU</div> — 350 Seattle (@350 Seattle)<a href="https://twitter.com/350_Seattle/statuses/1074461175553740800">1545006481.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
<p>"Amazon's shipping business runs on diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel. Some data centers are still coal-powered," the petition notes. Although the company doesn't disclose any information about its carbon footprint, 350 Seattle estimates that last year alone, its shipping operations generated more than 19 million metric tons of CO2—"the equivalent of nearly five coal-fired power plants."<br></p><p>Amazon, which is based in Seattle, declined to comment on the employees' proposal, but Kara Hurst, the company's director of worldwide sustainability, told the <strike><span class="redactor-selection-marker" id="selection-marker-1"></span>Times<span class="redactor-selection-marker" id="selection-marker-2"></span></strike>, "We have set a goal to power our global infrastructure with 100 percent renewable energy and are investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency innovations," pointing to the fact that 25 fulfillment centers are powered by solar energy and efforts to cut back on packing materials.</p><p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/17/amazon-employees-praised-using-shareholder-status-demand-comprehensive-climate-plan" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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Naomi Klein: 'New York City Is Taking a Game-Changing First Step in Turning the World Right Side Up'
12 January 2018
Climate
The following is a speech given by Naomi Klein in New York City on Jan. 10.
I want to thank Mayor de Blasio for this historic announcement that New York is divesting from fossil fuels and suing five oil majors.
<p>What's happening here is not only about changing the economics of energy, speeding the transition from dirty to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">clean</a>. It's also about justice.<br></p><p>And it represents a collective victory for the amazing climate justice movement around the world and in this city.</p><p>Groups like <a href="https://www.uprose.org/" target="_blank">Uprose</a>, the <a href="http://www.nyc-eja.org/" target="_blank">New York City Environmental Justice Alliance</a> and <a href="http://www.nyrenews.org/" target="_blank">New York Renews</a>, some of which are here today, as well as global groups like <a href="https://350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a>, which helped kick off the fossil fuel divestment movement about five years ago.</p><p>For a very long time, our movements have been insisting that principles of justice need to be at the center of the response to the climate crisis—a crisis that plays out in the most perversely unjust ways right now.</p><p>Justice means that people who did the least to create this crisis but are bearing the heaviest risks and most toxic burdens need to be first to benefit from green economic development and job creation.</p><p>Justice also means that workers in polluting industries are not sacrificed or left behind. And justice means something else too, something most politicians are loath to talk about because the wealth and power of fossil fuel companies is so vast.</p><p>It means that the corporate interests that did the most to get us into this mess—with their pollution and with their campaigns of willful misinformation—are going to have to pay their true share of the tremendous costs of climate disruption, and of delayed transition. Because right now we have it upside down and backwards.</p><p>As it stands, the costs of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise">sea level rise</a> and ferocious and unprecedented <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather">weather</a> events are offloaded on to the public, with taxpayers stiffed with the ballooning bills. And as governments absorb these costs, there is less money for schools, for affordable transit and housing, for health care. And, in yet another bitter irony, this hurts the people who are already impacted by <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a> the most.</p><p>This city saw all this in dramatic fashion during Sandy, when it was the people in public housing who were left for weeks in the cold and dark.</p><p>Meanwhile, the extravagant profits from destabilizing our planet's life support system, earned from ignoring and suppressing the scientific consensus—well, those are systematically privatized.</p><p>Earlier this decade, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/exxon">ExxonMobil</a> alone made $45 billion in profits in a single year– more than any company in history. Enough to pay <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rex-tillerson">Rex Tillerson</a>, then its CEO, $100,000 a day.</p><p>In short, the status quo means the poor are paying again and again for the polluters to get even richer. It's a world upside down. But that starts to change today.<br></p><p>By suing these five oil majors who knowingly deepened the climate crisis, and simultaneously beginning the process of divesting $5-billion from fossil fuel companies, New York City is taking a game changing first step in turning the world right side up. And not to overstate the case, but I actually think this could change the world.</p><p>There have been lawsuits before that have tried to sue the fossil fuel giants for climate damages. The tiny Arctic community of Kivalina, population 383, which attempted to recover the costs of having to relocate. Some citizens of the low-lying Pacific Island of Vanuatu—population 300,000—that began a similar suit. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/peruvian-farmer-german-energy-giant-2509404797.html">A lone Peruvian farmer</a>, suing a German <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> giant for the risks to his home. A small group of Gulf Coast Mississippi homeowners, with the help of a scrappy lawyer, who tried to sue the fossil fuel companies after Hurricane Katrina.</p><p>These have been valiant attempts, but in every case, the industry has relied on the relative weakness and poverty of its accusers, sometime managing to quash suits before they were filed.</p><p>And that is why today's news is so historic. Because bullying isn't going to work here the way it has in the past. This lawsuit is coming from the largest city in the most powerful country on the planet, a city which also happens to be the financial capital of world.</p><p>And now that New York City has thrown down in such a big way—on divestment, on polluter pays—it's going to embolden all kinds of other actors to step up as well. Other cities around the world. Universities. Foundations. Other states. Even entire nation states.</p><p>As of today, everyone needs to up their ambition. Be bolder. Move faster. It's what our planet requires. And it's what justice demands. No politician on the planet is doing enough. But there can be no doubt that the bar for what it takes to call yourself a climate leader has just been dramatically raised.</p><p>A few years ago, an Ecuadorian court ordered Chevron to pay $19-billion in damages for an oil disaster known as the "Rainforest Chernobyl." A spokesperson for the company responded by pledging that it would "fight this until hell freezes over. And then we'll fight it on the ice."</p><p>Well, New Yorkers know how to fight. They even know how to fight on the ice, as the New York Rangers occasionally show. I want to thank all the fighters in this room for reminding us of that.</p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://gofossilfree.org/naomi-klein-new-york-city-is-taking-a-game-changing-first-step-in-turning-the-world-right-side-up/" target="_blank">Fossil Free</a>, a project of <a href="https://350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a>.</em></p>
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Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Gage Skidmore / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
That was fast. Just two months after the Democratic National Committee (DNC) unanimously prohibited donations from fossil fuel companies, the DNC voted 30-2 on Friday on a resolution that critics say effectively reverses the ban, The Huffington Post reported.
The resolution, introduced by DNC Chair Tom Perez, allows the committee to accept donations from "workers, including those in energy and related industries, who organize and donate to Democratic candidates individually or through their unions' or employers' political action committees" or PACs.
<p>
It conflicts with the
<a href="https://medium.com/@sfpelosi/democrats-lets-clean-up-our-planet-and-our-politics-oilmoneyout-of-the-dnc-b1102d4311ab" target="_blank">original resolution</a> that called on the committee to "reject corporate PAC contributions from the fossil fuel industry that conflict with our DNC Platform."
</p><p>
In a conference call after the vote, Perez said that members of the labor community considered the original resolution passed in June "an attack on the working people in these industries," per
<a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/401356-dnc-passes-resolution-on-fossil-fuel-donations" target="_blank">The Hill</a>.
</p><p>
<span></span>He insisted that the DNC is still committed to the Democratic Party platform, "which states unequivocally our support for combating <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/dnc-fossil-fuel-company-donations-2577725779.html" target="_blank">climate change</a>."
</p><p>
<span></span>DNC executive committee member Christine Pelosi, co-author of the original resolution and the daughter of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, tweeted Friday that the committee "NEVER consulted me on language to reverse my resolution banning corporate fossil fuel PAC money."
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="729e6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="II75JG1576662719"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1028042649721221120" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">To be clear —> @DNC staff and officers NEVER consulted me on language to reverse my resolution banning corporate fo… https://t.co/FMSVgZdCX2</div> — Christine Pelosi (@Christine Pelosi)<a href="https://twitter.com/sfpelosi/statuses/1028042649721221120">1533939442.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>
Pelosi proposed an amendment Friday that would remove the words "employers' political action committees" but the motion failed 4-28.
</p><p>
A DNC spokeswoman disputed accusations that the committee is backtracking on its earlier resolution, telling HuffPo it's "not a reversal" and that "any review of our current donations reflects" the Democrats' "commitment" to no longer take money from the fossil fuel industry. The spokeswoman offered no further comment.
</p><p>
Jerald Lentini, deputy director of the Democratic fundraising group
<a href="https://contribute.itstarts.today/2018" target="_blank">It Starts Today</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexCKaufman/status/1028027398070169600" target="_blank">explained</a> to HuffPo that the new proposal may only apply to Democratic campaigns, meaning it does not fully annul the first resolution. However, as Lentini noted, it would still "repudiate the spirit" of it.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="4b0d4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="QP0QFP1576662719"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1028027398070169600" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">As @jrlentini pointed out to me, it could be that this proposal only applies to Democratic campaigns ― in which cas… https://t.co/AcNw0oJZV5</div> — Alexander Kaufman (@Alexander Kaufman)<a href="https://twitter.com/AlexCKaufman/statuses/1028027398070169600">1533935806.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>
Environmentalists and progressive Democrats decried the DNC's move.
</p><p>
"Why in the age of Trump, wildfires, and eminent domain for private gain are we using land gauge and stances of the GOP? Many of us will fight this at DNC meeting in August,"
<a href="http://boldnebraska.org/" target="_blank">Bold Nebraska</a> founder and Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Fleming Kleeb <a href="https://twitter.com/janekleeb/status/1028112578768195586" target="_blank">tweeted</a>.
</p><p>
New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, who has sworn off any corporate donations and has joined hundreds of politicians that have signed the
<a href="http://nofossilfuelmoney.org/" target="_blank">No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge</a>, had a similar sentiment: "You can't do right when you're getting donations from companies that do wrong."
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="4e222" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="EXRJQ41576662719"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1028016556511584258" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">You can't do right when you're getting donations from companies that do wrong. https://t.co/OOa1WMQazt</div> — Cynthia Nixon (@Cynthia Nixon)<a href="https://twitter.com/CynthiaNixon/statuses/1028016556511584258">1533933221.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>
"Honestly, these people are bound and determined to deflate and demobilize their base," <a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/status/1028013373856702464" target="_blank">tweeted</a> author and activist Naomi Klein.
</p><p>
What's more, the text of the new resolution embraces an "all-of-the-above energy economy" that includes clean and low-emissions energy technology, "from renewables to carbon capture and storage to advanced nuclear technology."
</p><p>
<a href="http://www.350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a> co-founder Bill McKibben criticized the measure and <a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1028014653648068609" target="_blank">noted</a> that the "new DNC proposal would support an 'all of the above' energy policy which the last party platform explicitly rejects. This is a bad idea, on both scientific and political grounds."
</p><p>
In 2016, the Democratic National Committee
<a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/25/democrats-strike-all-of-the-above-energy-policy-fr/" target="_blank">axed its support</a> for an "all-of-the-above" energy policy and calls for having the nation run "entirely on clean energy by midcentury."</p>
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</p><div id="5a88a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7QH7SP1576662719"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1003749505550909440" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Taxpayers Still Shelling Out Billions Annually in Fossil Fuel Subsidies https://t.co/TY5gpcctOv @GoFossilFree @350</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/1003749505550909440">1528147505.0</a></blockquote></div>
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As Florence Makes Landfall, Poorest Once Again More Likely to Suffer Most From Storm's Destruction
14 September 2018
Climate
ZACH GIBSON / AFP / Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
As Hurricane Florence officially made landfall Friday, and forecasters warn of "life-threatening, catastrophic flash flooding," some attention has turned to residents across mandatory evacuation zones in the Carolinas and Virginia who chose to stay or were unable to leave, and how the poorest often pay the highest price when faced with a natural disaster.
<p>Responding to a New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/reader-center/hurricane-florence-personal-stories.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur" target="_blank">report</a> in which an Edenton, North Carolina man who cares for his father—a cancer patient with whom he shares a double-wide trailer—explained that his family doesn't have the resources to leave, author and activist Naomi Klein tweeted Friday, "These disasters drag into the light exactly who is already being thrown away."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="5fca1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1DGZIU1576663711"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1040609568898928640" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Climate chaos is a justice issue. Economic justice. Racial justice. Migrant justice. Gender justice. Justice for th… https://t.co/aZ9gvUxvlh</div> — Naomi Klein (@Naomi Klein)<a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/statuses/1040609568898928640">1536935629.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>"Poverty lies in the path of Hurricane Florence in eastern N.C.," the Asheville Citizen Times <a href="https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/2018/09/13/poverty-lies-path-hurricane-florence-eastern-nc/1286835002/" target="_blank">declared</a> Thursday. "Some people are getting out of town, but that's not an option for me. I have no money, no job, no connections," Tony Clower, a 39-year-old homeless man living in Kinston, told the newspaper. "I want to cry. All I can do is put my hands together and ask God to keep me safe."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="3f493" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6W9LG01576663711"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1040451262817476608" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This worries me the most about #HurricaneFlorence.
“The path of Hurricane Florence sees it going over some of the… https://t.co/89atZihm25</div> — Jim Keady (@Jim Keady)<a href="https://twitter.com/JWKeady/statuses/1040451262817476608">1536897886.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>A Vox article <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/25/16202296/hurricane-florence-2018-evacuation-psychology" target="_blank">outlining</a> common reasons people don't always abide by evacuations orders noted that "there are people who don't leave due to disabilities—they simply can't get out of their homes and don't have anyone to help them." Some don't want to leave behind their pets, and can't find a shelter or hotel that will allow animals.<br></p><p>Others may underestimate the threat or not receive timely storm updates—though Vox pointed out, "in an age when warnings can be blasted out via radio, TV and smartphones, and through old-fashioned door-to-door notifications, this is becoming less likely." And then there are those who fear their home will be looted, or those like Clower, who cannot afford to travel and stay somewhere safe.</p><p>Kathy Sexton, a 56-year-old resident of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/09/13/the-water-is-the-devil-hurricane-florence-roars-closer-to-the-southeast-with-punishing-rain-wind/?utm_term=.f772ab374419" target="_blank">spoke with</a> the Washington Post about the various reasons she is trying to ride out the storm in her two-story townhouse:</p><blockquote>[She] had thought about staying with relatives who live six hours away, but the long drive would be detrimental to her elderly mother, whose damaged spine keeps her from being able to sit for extended periods. She would've booked a hotel further inland, she said, but she couldn't afford the cost. She would've stayed at one of the emergency shelters, but pets aren't allowed there, she said. Sexton has two 15-year-old cats that both need medication, and she said there's no place to board them. Even if there was one, she doesn't trust anyone else to take care of them. "They're like family. There's just no way," she said.</blockquote><p>Emergency rescues already have begun for those who wouldn't or couldn't evacuate, after coastal communities <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/13/florence-threatens-catastrophic-destruction-reminder-north-carolina-passed-law" target="_blank">were struck</a> by the outer bands of the storm on Thursday. In New Bern, North Carolina, as of 2:27am local time, about 150 residents were still waiting on assistance from FEMA crews, according to the city's <a href="https://twitter.com/CityofNewBern/status/1040487129900634112" target="_blank">Twitter account</a>.</p><p>"People surrounding me are under water. They have been trapped in their attics," New Bern resident Tonya Moore <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/nearly-150-people-trapped-new-bern-n-c-small-city-n909551" target="_blank">told</a> NBC News while awaiting rescue with her mother, husband, and five children. "Every road is flooded. There's nowhere to get out over here."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="e6e68" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7ODBJL1576663711"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1040591984401035265" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">"We are hearing from emergency responders that they are encountering folks and chest deep water," New Bern Police s… https://t.co/kkcLAa5LBX</div> — CBS News (@CBS News)<a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/statuses/1040591984401035265">1536931437.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>As Florence continued its crawl along the Southeast, FEMA on Friday <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/fema-cuts-housing-funds-987-puerto-rican-families-who-fled-n908606" target="_blank">cut off</a> vouchers for 987 American families living in hotel rooms across the country after being displaced from their homes in Puerto Rico because of Hurricane Maria, which ravaged the U.S. territory last September. FEMA offered them one-way tickets back to the island—which <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/28/if-911-attacks-can-spark-trillions-war-spending-asks-ocasio-cortez-why-cant-us-find" target="_blank">is still struggling</a> with widely ridiculed recovery efforts—but that offer also expires Friday.<br></p><p>Some of these families spoke with <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/fema-cuts-housing-funds-987-puerto-rican-families-who-fled-n908606" target="_blank">NBC News</a> about their difficulties finding longer-term housing they can afford. Vimarie Cardona is a single mother of three who has lived in an Orlando hotel with her children since November. Now working as a housekeeper at Disney World, Cardona explained that landlords have refused to rent her one-bedroom apartments because of the size of her family, and two-bedroom options are outside of her price range.</p><p>"I started looking for apartments. Even before they said [the voucher payments] would end I started looking," she said Wednesday. "From day one it was hell."</p><p>Florence also comes just days after <a href="http://www.wlrn.org/post/nationwide-prison-strike-ends-its-not-yet-clear-if-it-made-difference" target="_blank">the conclusion</a> of a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/01/nationwide-prison-strike-reaches-second-week-inmates-accuse-officials-retaliating" target="_blank">multi-week</a> nationwide prison strike to demand improved living conditions and an end to "<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/21/demanding-end-modern-day-slavery-prisoners-launch-multi-day-nationwide-strike" target="_blank">modern day slavery</a>" that was organized in response to an <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/news/inmate-who-witnessed-riot-inside-s-c-prison-says-he/article_866f3b94-4191-11e8-903c-bb72e5942d54.html" target="_blank">April riot</a> at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina, where guards waited several hours intervene in violence that killed seven priosners and injured more than dozen.</p><p>As the hurricane approached this week, multiple other South Carolina detention facilities made headlines for refusing to evacuate inmates despite being located in a mandatory evacuation zones. Spokesmen insisted to <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/d3jzkw/at-least-650-inmates-in-south-carolina-could-be-stranded-when-hurricane-florence-hits" target="_blank">VICE</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/maryanngeorgantopoulos/prisons-detention-centers-hurricane-evacuation-florence?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc" target="_blank">BuzzFeed News</a> that the facilities can safely withstand the storm.</p><p>However, as VICE outlined, there is a long history of inmates facing dangerous conditions after officials decline to evacuate due to a hurricane—or prisoners being abandoned altogether:</p><blockquote>Inmates left behind at a <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/houston-weather/hurricaneharvey/article/Harvey-beaumont-prison-inmates-speak-out-texas-12167587.php" target="_blank">federal prison</a> near Houston following Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 reported food shortages, no drinking water, and sewage flooding. Many inmates weathered the storm still locked in their cells. And as Puerto Rico reeled in the devastated aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons began evacuating inmates from its easternmost facility in Rio Grande due to sustained power outages. During the chaos of the relocation process after the hurricane, <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjd54w/13-puerto-rico-prisoners-escaped-during-hurricane-maria" target="_blank">13 inmates escaped</a>.<br><br>City officials also reportedly abandoned inmates at the New Orleans Parish Prison during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2005/09/21/new-orleans-prisoners-abandoned-floodwaters" target="_blank">Human Rights Watch reported</a> that correctional officers left more than 600 inmates in one building without supervision to weather the storm. Some inmates say they were left locked in their cells for days as flood water seeped into the jail, eventually reaching chest level, before they were evacuated.</blockquote><p>Ahead of the storm on Wednesday, a group of prison reform activists gathered outside of the South Carolina statehouse to protest against the decision to keep inmates in facilities located within evacuation zones, pointing to post-Katrina conditions as well as prisoners who have died even when there isn't a hurricane forcing so many others to flee.</p><p>"In perfect conditions we see people dying," activist Stephanie Serna <a href="https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article218252685.html" target="_blank">told</a> The State, a local newspaper. "What makes us think that in an emergency situation they'll do better without any accountability?"</p><p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/14/florence-makes-landfall-poorest-once-more-likely-suffer-most-storms-destruction" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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Alex Nabaum
By Naomi Klein
LET'S REWIND A BIT, to the week Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election. At that moment, I was reeling from witnessing not one catastrophe but two. And I don't think we can understand the true danger of the Trump disaster unless we grapple with both of them.
I was in Australia for work, but I was also very conscious that, because of the carbon involved in that kind of travel, I might not be able to return for a long time. So I decided to visit, for the first time in my life, the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Queensland, a World Heritage Site and Earth's largest natural structure made up of living creatures. It was simultaneously the most beautiful and the most frightening thing I had ever seen.
<p style="">As my Australia trip was approaching, I realized that my feelings about seeing the reef were tied up in my being the mother of a four-year-old boy, Toma. As parents, we can sometimes make the mistake of exposing kids too early to all the threats and dangers facing the natural world. The first book about nature that a lot of children read is Dr. Seuss's <em>The Lorax</em>, which is all about pollution and beautiful places being turned into garbage and all the animals dying and disappearing and choking. It's really scary. I read it to Toma when he was two and watched the terror cross his face. And I thought, "No, this is completely wrong." Now we read stories about fast-talking squirrels and books that celebrate nature's beauty and wonder. Even if I know these books are about species that are on the brink of extinction, Toma doesn't need to worry about that yet. I figure that my job is to try to create as many positive experiences as possible that will attach him to the natural world. You need to love something first before you can protect and defend it.</p><p style="">I also wanted to go to the reef in my role as a journalist. Over the previous two years, something unprecedented in recorded history had happened. Because of record-breaking temperatures, more than 90 percent of the Great Barrier Reef had been impacted by what's known as a "mass bleaching event." It's hard to stress just how cataclysmic the bleaching has been. When coral is bleached, those beautiful, intensely colored creatures—an ecosystem as rich and teeming as the Amazon rainforest—turn ghostly and bone-white. Bleached coral can recover if temperatures quickly go back down to normal levels. This time, they hadn't gone back down—so almost a quarter of the reef has died. Unlike many other <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_blank">climate change</a>-related events, this wasn't some dramatic storm or wildfire—just silent, watery death. </p><p style="">We went out on the reef with a team of extraordinarily dedicated marine biologists (all of whom were emotionally shattered by what they had been documenting) and a film crew from the <em>Guardian</em>. We started filming in the parts of the reef that are still alive, and we managed to get Toma to put on a snorkel. The scientists were incredibly patient with him, and there were about five solid minutes when he really was able to have a flash of true wonder—he "saw Nemo"; he saw a sea cucumber. I think he even saw a sea turtle. These parts of the reef, the ones that are neither bleached nor dead, are only a fraction of the whole, but they are still glorious—a riot of life, of electric-colored coral and fish, sea turtles and sharks swimming by.</p><p style=""><span></span>We didn't take Toma on the boat when we filmed the dead and bleached parts of the reef. And it was a graveyard. It was as if a cosmic switch had been flipped and suddenly one of the most beautiful places on Earth had been turned into one of the ugliest. The coral bones were covered in a goo of decaying life—a brown goo. You just wanted to get away from there. Our wetsuits stank of death.</p><p style="">One of the most unjust aspects of climate disruption (and there are many) is that our actions as adults today will have their most severe impact on the lives of generations yet to come, as well as kids alive today who are too young to impact policy—kids like Toma and his friends and their generation the world over. These children have done nothing to create the crisis, but they are the ones who will deal with the most <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather">extreme weather</a>—the storms and droughts and fires and rising seas—and all the social and economic stresses that will flow as a result. They are the ones growing up amid a mass extinction, robbed of so much beauty and so much of the companionship that comes from being surrounded by other life-forms.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjkwNDYyOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NDg2MDU5OH0.pPUXhi0_ioaw9OtRTObRnOsDks5RUVUzp2E6jI4nhLA/img.jpg?width=980" id="73c5a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c97df8e25ac6c252bcced6bf6e8879b6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Alex Nabaum</small></p><p style="">By the end of the day, we were all completely wiped out. We had seen so much death, so much loss, but my son had also had this special experience. That night, tucking him into bed in our motel room, I said, "Toma, today is the day when you discovered there is a secret world under the sea." And he just looked up at me with an expression of pure bliss and said, "I saw it." I burst into tears, some mixture of joy and heartbreak at the knowledge that just as he is becoming aware of this beauty in the world, all this magic, it is being drained away.<br></p><p style=""><strong>THE STAKES IN THE 2016 ELECTION </strong>were enormously high for a great many reasons, from the millions who stood to lose their health insurance to those targeted by racist attacks as Trump fanned the flames of rising white nationalism; from the families that stood to be torn apart by cruel immigration policies to the prospect of women losing the right to decide whether or not to become mothers, to the reality of sexual assault being normalized and trivialized at the highest reaches of power. With so many lives on the line, there is nothing to be gained by ranking issues by urgency and playing "my crisis is bigger than your crisis." If it's happening to you, if it's your family being torn apart or you who are being singled out for police harassment, or your grandmother who cannot afford a life-saving treatment, or your drinking water that's laced with lead—it's all a five-alarm fire.</p><p>Climate change isn't more important than any of these other issues, but it does have a different relationship to time. When the politics of climate change go wrong—and they are very, very wrong right now—we don't get to try again in four years. Because in four years, Earth will have been radically changed by all the gases emitted in the interim, and our chances of averting an irreversible catastrophe will have shrunk.</p><p style="">This may sound alarmist, but I have interviewed the leading scientists in the world on this question, and their research shows that it's simply a neutral description of reality. The window during which there is time to lower emissions sufficiently to avoid truly catastrophic warming is closing rapidly. Lots of social movements have adopted Samuel Beckett's famous line "Try again. Fail again. Fail better" as a lighthearted motto. I've always liked the attitude; we can't be perfect, we won't always win, but we should strive to improve. The trouble is, Beckett's dictum doesn't work for climate—not at this stage in the game. If we keep failing to lower emissions, if we keep failing to kick-start the transition in earnest away from fossil fuels and to an economy based on renewables, if we keep dodging the question of wasteful consumption and the quest for more and more and bigger and bigger, there won't be more opportunities to fail better. Nearly everything is moving faster than the climate change modeling projected, including Arctic sea-ice loss, ice sheet collapse, ocean warming, sea level rise, and coral bleaching. The next time voters in countries around the world go to the polls, more sea ice will have melted, more coastal land will have been lost, more species will have disappeared for good. The chance for us to keep temperatures below what it would take for island nations such as, say, Tuvalu or the Maldives to be saved from drowning becomes that much slimmer. These are irreversible changes—we don't get a do-over on a drowned country.</p><p style="">The latest peer-reviewed science tells us that if we want a good shot at protecting coastal cities in my son's lifetime—including metropolises like New York City and Mumbai—then we need to get off fossil fuels with superhuman speed. A paper from Oxford University that came out during the U.S. presidential campaign, published in the Applied Energy journal, concluded that for humanity to have a fifty-fifty chance of meeting the temperature targets set in the climate accord negotiated in Paris at the end of 2015, every new power plant would have to be zero-carbon starting in 2018. That's the second year of the Trump presidency.</p><p style="">For most of us—including me—this is very hard information to wrap our heads around, because we are used to narratives that reassure us about the inevitability of eventual progress. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." It's a powerful idea that sadly doesn't work for the climate crisis. The wealthy governments of the world have procrastinated for so long, and made the problem so much worse in the meantime, that the arc has to bend very, very fast now—or the shot at justice is gone for good. We are almost at midnight on the climate clock.<strong></strong></p><p><strong>MANY HAVE HOPED THAT </strong>the existential urgency of the climate crisis—and early shocks like superstorms and reef die-offs—would serve as a collective wake-up call, becoming the catalyst for humanity to change to a cleaner and fairer economic model in a hurry. That kind of rapid democratic transformation would be the inverse of what I have called "the shock doctrine"—the use of crisis by the powerful to push through regressive, pro-corporate reforms. </p><p style=""><span></span>And there is precedent for great shocks serving this kind of progressive function. Indeed, up until the '80s—before shock doctrine tactics became the norm—crises that were obviously born of financial greed and corporate malfeasance often provoked some of the most momentous progressive victories in modern history.</p><p>In the United States, after the carnage of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, blacks and their radical allies pushed for economic justice and greater social rights. They won major victories, including free public education for all children—although it would take another century before schools were desegregated. The horrific 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City, which took the lives of 146 young immigrant garment workers, catalyzed hundreds of thousands of workers into militancy—eventually leading to an overhaul of the state labor code, caps on overtime, new rules for child labor, and breakthroughs in health and fire safety regulations.</p><p>Most significantly, it was only thanks to the collective response from below to the Great Crash of 1929 that the New Deal became possible. The strike wave of the mid-1930s—the Teamsters' rebellion and the Minneapolis general strike, the 83-day shutdown of the West Coast by longshore workers, and the Flint sit-down strikes in the auto plants—established the power of industrial unions and forced owners to share a great deal more wealth with their workers. In this same period, as a response to the suffering brought on by the Great Depression, mass movements demanded sweeping social programs such as Social Security and unemployment insurance (programs from which the majority of African American and many women workers were notably excluded). In the same period, tough new rules regulating the financial sector were introduced, at real cost to unfettered profit making. Across the industrialized world, pressure from social movements created the conditions for programs like the New Deal, featuring ambitious investments in public infrastructure—utilities, transportation systems, housing, and more—on a scale comparable to what the climate crisis calls for today. (Just as the wreckage of the Second World War provided another such catalyst.)</p><p>In 1969, there was an oil spill in Santa Barbara, which coated California's beautiful beaches, and it was something like a Great Crash for the environment—a shock millions responded to by demanding fundamental change. Many of North America's toughest laws protecting air, water, and endangered species can trace their roots back to the popular anger that exploded in response to that disaster.</p><p>In all these cases, a painful crisis served as a wake-up call, ushering in meaningful legislation that created a fairer and safer society—thanks in no small part to the hard work of organizers who had been preparing the ground for years before the shocks hit. These were far from perfect reforms, not full-scale transformations, and yet they were directly responsible for winning much of the modern social safety net as well as the regulatory structures that protect so many workers and public health. </p><p>So why did those crises produce such visionary change, while more recent ones—Hurricane Katrina, the subprime mortgage debacle, BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster—have left so little progressive public policy behind? </p><p style="">Here is one theory: The interplay between lofty dreams and earthly victories has always been at the heart of moments of deep transformation. The breakthroughs won for workers and their families after the Civil War and during the Great Depression, as well as for civil rights and the environment in the '60s and early '70s, were not just responses to crises. They were responses to crises that unfolded in times when people dared to dream big, out loud, in public—explosions of utopian imagination.</p><p style="">Our moment of crisis today could catalyze similar transformations—but first we need to reclaim the utopian tradition that animated so many transcendent social movements in the past. It means having the courage to paint a picture of a different world, one which, even if it exists only in our minds, can fuel us as we engage in winnable battles. Because, as Oscar Wilde wrote in 1891, "a map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail."</p><p style="">Part of that voyage is not just talking and writing about the future we want—but building it as we go. It's a principle I saw in action (and prayer, and song) in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/dakota-access-pipeline">Standing Rock</a>.</p><p style=""><strong>I WENT TO NORTH DAKOTA</strong> less than a month after Trump was elected. The forecast called for an epic snowstorm, and it was already starting to come down as we arrived, the low hills and heavy sky a monochromatic white.</p><p style="">Days earlier, the governor had announced plans to clear the camps of the thousands of "water protectors" who had gathered on the outskirts of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to try to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. A company called Energy Transfer Partners was determined to build the oil pipeline under Lake Oahe, the sole source of drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux, as well as under another section of the Missouri River, which provides drinking water for 17 million people. If the pipeline ruptured, the tribal leaders argued, their people would have no safe water and their sacred sites would be desecrated. The movement's Lakota-language slogan, heard around the world, was <em>Mni Wiconi</em>—"water is life."</p><p style="">After months of confrontations with private security and highly militarized police, it seemed the governor now felt, with Trump on the way to the White House, that the coast was clear to crush the movement with force. The blows had been coming for months—about 750 people would be arrested by the time the camps were cleared—and when I arrived, Standing Rock had already become the site of the most violent state repression in recent U.S. history. With the issuing of the eviction order, many were calling December 5, 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux's "last stand," and I along with many others had traveled there to stand with them.</p><p>One of my first conversations at Standing Rock was with legendary Lakota elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, who in many ways had got all this resistance going when she opened the first camp on her land, the Sacred Stone Camp. That was in April 2016. Eight months later, here she was, eyes still sparkling, betraying not a bit of fatigue despite playing den mother to thousands of people who had come from across the world to be part of this historic movement.</p><p>Brave Bull Allard told me she had come to understand that, although stopping the pipeline was crucial, there was something greater at work in this convergence. She said the camps were now a place where indigenous and nonindigenous people alike were learning to live in relationship and community with the land. This moment was also about exposing visitors to the traditions and ceremonies that had been kept alive despite hundreds of years of genocidal attacks on indigenous people and culture. This, she told me, is why the traditions survived the onslaught. "We knew this day was coming—the unification of all the tribes. . . . We are here to protect the earth and the water. This is why we are still alive. To do this very thing we are doing. To help humanity answer its most pressing question: How do we live with the earth again, not against it?" </p><p>At Standing Rock, I found myself thinking a lot about what it means to be a protector. Leaders of the movement there had insisted from day one that they were not "protesters" out to make trouble, but "water protectors" determined to stop a whole other order of trouble. I thought about my own duty to be a protector—of my son and his friends and the kids yet to come, in the face of the rocky future we've locked in for all of them.</p><p>Amid the tears and the sage smoke, we felt the touch of history. Since the election, I had been longing for some kind of gathering of progressive thinkers and organizers—to strategize, unite, and find a way through the next four years of Trump's daily barrage. I pictured it happening at a university, in big halls. I didn't expect to find that space at Standing Rock. But that is indeed where I discovered it, in the camps' combination of reaction and contemplation, and in the constant learning-by-doing modeled by Brave Bull Allard and so many other leaders there.</p><p>At Standing Rock, they did not, in the end, manage to stop the pipeline—at least not yet. In a flagrant betrayal of treaty and land rights, Trump immediately reversed Obama's decision and allowed the company—flanked by layers of militarized police—to ram the pipe under Lake Oahe, without the consent of the Standing Rock Sioux. As I write, oil is flowing beneath the community's drinking water reservoir, and the pipe could burst at any time. That outrage is being challenged in the courts, and extensive pressure is being put on the banks that financed the project. Roughly $80 million (and counting) has been pulled from the banks that have invested in the pipeline.</p><p style="">But the oil still flows.</p><p style=""><strong>I WILL NEVER FORGET</strong> the experience of being at the main camp when the news arrived, after the months of resistance, that the Obama administration had finally denied the pipeline permit. I happened to be standing with Tokata Iron Eyes, a fiercely grounded yet playful 13-year-old from Standing Rock who had helped kick-start the movement against the pipeline. I turned on my phone video and asked her how she felt about the breaking news. "Like I have my future back," she replied, and then she burst into tears. I did, too.</p><p style=""><span></span>Thanks to Trump, Tokata has again lost that sense of safety. And yet his action cannot and does not erase the profound learning that took place during all those months on the land. The modeling of a form of resistance that, with one hand, said no to an imminent threat and, with the other, worked tirelessly to build the yes that is the world we want and need. </p><p style=""> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-1-january-february/feature/hope-trumps-nope-blueprint-for-resistance" target="_blank">SIERRA Magazine</a>.</em></p>
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