http://www.scribd.com/doc/81016161/Doc-5—the WVDEP flippantly issues permits that impact the battlefield.
JB: Folks have literally been fighting for decades to place the Blair Mountain Battlefield on the National Register. What’s the latest with the National Park Service, and Keeper of the National Register–and do you think any state or federal agencies should be investigated for regulatory violations?
BN: Yes, efforts to get the battlefield on the NRHP have been going on since the early 1980s. The first nomination area was around 20,000 acres, and then it was taken down to 3200 acres, then to 1600 acres today. In 2005, the nomination was finally accepted by Keeper of the National Register. It was listed for about a month in 2009. It was then delisted after eight property owner objectors’ letters were ‘found’ by the WVSHPO, and this turned the balance (for NRHP listing a simple majority of property owners decide whether or not a site is listed). This list included two deceased ‘objectors’ and was gerrymandered to exclude property owners who were known to support the nomination.
As far any agency being investigated, I think every agency in West Virginia should be investigated for corruption, from the Governor to the DEP to the local political machines in southern West Virginia. Corruption is so rampant here; it is just a way of life. I know that is a very general answer, but the truth is that politics in southern West Virginia are rotten to the core, and I couldn’t even tell someone where to begin.
JB: Why are you encouraging supporters to contact Gov. Tomblin to place an immediate stay of execution any mining on the battlefield, and do you feel there is any hope within WV for a resolution to preserve Blair Mtn?
BN: Because the WVDEP has primacy over these permits, they are the agency that can stop the destruction of Blair Mountain. But, they only answer to Governor Tomblin. The Governor does have the influence to rein in the WVDEP, and so he is the focus of a concerted effort to contact him and ask him to preserve the Blair Mountain battlefield.
As cynical as I usually am about West Virginia politics, there is a chance that some legislation may be passed to halt any surface mining on Blair Mountain. Some key legislators have signaled their support, and so we have people working to put that forward.
JB: Last year, as part of the annual Appalachian Rising gathering, a thousand people from around the country converged on Blair Mountain for a special march and protest. Given the level of funding and organization expenditures, how have you or Appalachia Rising followed up with the participants over the past year and built on the march organization?
BN: The Appalachia Rising event at Blair Mountain was the collective result of many organizations across central Appalachia, and we have all maintained and built upon those networks. With the March on Blair Mountain, we had many young organizers stepping into key roles and who gained valuable experience. This year, I’d like to see Appalachia Rising all across Appalachia and the country. We have the experience, communication, and networks to coordinate this with each local organization working in their own way for mass mobilizations across the coalfields to halt mountaintop removal (MTR).
More locally, some of the most intensive but less-visible work of organizing the March was going door-to-door along the march route months before the event. This helped start discussions, raise awareness, and bolster support in the local area. During the march, the results were seen all along the way by people who came out to show support. Certainly, we had our detractors, but the majority of locals were supportive.
We have followed up on that most specifically by opening the Blair Community Center and Museum, in Blair, WV. This came directly from the march, when the son of Winnie Fox, an ardent anti-MTR activist who passed away this year, agreed to let us use an old Methodist church he owned in Blair. So, the march ended with something very concrete in that we have a foothold in Logan, WV, the belly of the beast of the coal industry, in a community that supports the work we do.
JB: Describe the plans for your new Blair Community Center and how people can support you? Are you working with WV schools, as well, to teach the history of Blair Mtn, coal mining, union rights?
BN: First, the community of Blair was almost destroyed in the late 1990s by an Arch Coal MTR operation directly behind the town. Currently, multiple MTR permits are converging on the town, plus a longwall miner underground. The community has gone from about 700 people in the 1990s to about 90 people today. Quite frankly, Blair is being destroyed by Arch Coal.
So, the Community Center and Museum has multiple purposes. We educate and raise awareness of the history of coalmining and struggles for union rights such as at Blair Mountain. We also operate our Friends of Blair Mountain office out of here to preserve the battlefield. Additionally, we work to bring vibrancy back to Blair by stimulating local economic developments centered on tourism of the Blair Mountain battlefield. We also maintain a space within the community to socialize. We’ve already had multiple events, and we are developing more for the spring and summer. We work with community members to address their problems when Arch Coal tries to treat them roughshod. We just try to be good neighbors, to contribute to the community as best we can.
One of our major projects is attempting to bring a heavy-duty reverse osmosis water filtration system to the Community Center. Blair has completely toxic drinking water, and everyone has to buy their water since municipal water lines do not run to the town. We are working on getting a filling station constructed where people can get free and clean drinking water.
People can support us in many ways, from donating money, to spreading the word, to writing their congress people, or even joining in the effort by getting in with a working group, just contact us at friendsofblairmountain@gmail.com. If you’d like to donate, you do so by going to either of our sites, www.friendsofblairmountain.org or www.blairmountainmuseum.org.
JB: While UMWA officials are supporters of preserving the Blair Mountain Battlefield from strip mining, the UWMA has openly supported non-union mountaintop removal operations (proposed at Spruce, for example) and defends other massive MTR operations, such as Hobet. Do you consider the impact of MTR on Blair Mtn and its residents more important than the impact of other UMWA-supported MTR operations, and why should funds and resources be expended to protect the battlefield, as opposed to other areas being destroyed by the UMWA?
BN: The Blair Mountain battlefield is only one of hundreds of mountains that have been destroyed or are slated for destruction. Every single mountain deserves to be saved. I am first and foremost an Appalachian, and my allegiance is to the people around me rather than any single organization. The UMWA has done a lot of good for coalminers, ones I know personally here in Blair. But, on the mountaintop removal issue, I believe they are on the wrong side of history. We’re working on engaging in dialogue to change this. There are some really good people in the UMWA, and we hope to continue to build unity and pragmatic solutions where we can.
Recently, peer-reviewed science has been accumulating that mountaintop removal operations are killing people with cancer, causing birth defects, and a host of other illnesses. In other words, the occupational hazards of coal extraction are being externalized onto surrounding communities. These communities are often composed of active and retired mining families. In this regard, the UMWA hopefully will work, as they have historically done, to limit the occupational hazards of coal mining both for their workers and mining communities.
There is a lot of room to move forward with innovative and pragmatic solutions that the UMWA and groups like the Sierra Club can work together on. Our common foe is the multinational corporations, and I’ve always said it doesn’t matter if you die in a rock fall or by cancer, the pain is the same for those who have to bear it. We need to come together, and engage in open conversation. I can’t pretend to know what the UMWA is facing right now as an organization, and what their members want. I do know that I would like to have an honest discussion, have everyone put their heads together, and figure out a solution.
To me, solidarity is a very strong concept that crosses boundaries and labels such as labor and green. That is part of the heritage of Blair Mountain, where the normal lines that divided people, such as race back in 1921, were overcome. That is the heritage we attempt to both preserve and honor in our work.
JB: Other comments?
BN: In the end, both the town of Blair and the Blair Mountain battlefield will be destroyed if Arch Coal is not stopped soon. And this is just one mountain and one town in Appalachia. Many more communities are being destroyed by MTR, and people are sickened and poisoned. Right now is the time to stop this; the people of Appalachia can’t wait any longer to stop MTR. It truly is killing us.
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Four more years will be enough to cement in place Trump's anti-environmental policies and to make sure it's too late to really change course. Enrique Meseguer / Pixabay
By Bill McKibben
To understand the planetary importance of this autumn's presidential election, check the calendar. Voting ends on November 3—and by a fluke of timing, on the morning of November 4 the United States is scheduled to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
President Trump announced that we would abrogate our Paris commitments during a Rose Garden speech in 2017. But under the terms of the accords, it takes three years to formalize the withdrawal. So on Election Day it won't be just Americans watching: The people of the world will see whether the country that has poured more carbon into the atmosphere than any other over the course of history will become the only country that refuses to cooperate in the one international effort to do something about the climate crisis.
<p>Trump's withdrawal benefited oil executives, who have donated millions of dollars to his reelection campaign, and the small, strange fringe of climate deniers who continue to insist that the planet is cooling. But most people living in the rational world were appalled. Polling showed widespread opposition, and by some measures, Trump is more out of line with the American populace on environmental issues than any other. In his withdrawal announcement he said he'd been elected "to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris"; before the day was out, Pittsburgh's mayor had pledged that his city would follow the guidelines set in the French capital. Young people, above all, have despised the president's climate moves: Poll after poll shows that climate change is a top-tier issue with them and often the most important one—mostly, I think, because they've come to understand how tightly linked it is not just to their future but to questions of justice, equity, and race. </p><p>Here's the truth: At this late date, meeting the promises set in Paris will be nowhere near enough. If you add up the various pledges that nations made at that conference, they plan on moving so timidly that the planet's temperature will still rise more than 3 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels. So far, we've raised the mercury 1 degree Celsius, and that's been enough to melt millions of square miles of ice in the Arctic, extend fire seasons for months, and dramatically alter the planet's rainfall patterns. Settling for 3 degrees is kind of like writing a global suicide note. </p>
<p>Happily, we could go much faster if we wanted. The price of solar and wind power has fallen so fast and so far in the last few years that they are now the cheapest power on earth. There are plenty of calculations to show it will soon be cheaper to build solar and wind farms than to operate the fossil fuel power stations we've already built. Climate-smart investments are also better for workers and economic equality. "We need to have climate justice, which means to invest in green energy, [which] creates three times more jobs than to invest in fossil fuel energy," United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said in an interview with Covering Climate Now in September. If we wanted to make it happen, in other words, an energy revolution is entirely possible. The best new study shows that the United States could cut its current power sector emissions 80 percent by 2035 and create 20 million jobs along the way. </p><p>Joe Biden and Kamala Harris haven't pledged to move that quickly, but their climate plan is the farthest-reaching of any presidential ticket in history. More to the point, we can pressure them to go farther and faster. Already, seeing the polling on the wall, they've adopted many of the proposals of climate stalwarts like Washington Governor Jay Inslee. A team of Biden and Bernie Sanders representatives worked out a pragmatic but powerful compromise in talks before the Democratic National Convention; the Biden-Harris ticket seems primed to use a transition to green energy as a crucial part of a push to rebuild the pandemic-devastated economy. </p>
<p>Perhaps most important, they've pledged to try to lead the rest of the world in the climate fight. The United States has never really done this. Our role as the single biggest producer of hydrocarbons has meant that our response to global warming has always been crippled by the political power of Big Oil. But that power has begun to slip. Once the biggest economic force on the planet, the oil industry is a shadow of its former self. (You could buy all the oil companies in America for less than the cost of Apple; Tesla is worth more than any other auto company on earth.) And so it's possible that the hammerlock on policy exercised by this reckless industry will loosen if Trump is beaten.</p><p>But only if he's beaten. Four more years will be enough to cement in place his anti-environmental policies and to make sure it's too late to really change course. The world's climate scientists declared in 2018 that if we had any chance of meeting sane climate targets, we had to cut emissions almost in half by 2030. That's less than 10 years away. We're at the last possible moment to turn the wheel of the supertanker that is our government. Captain Trump wants to steer us straight onto the rocks, mumbling all the while about hoaxes. If we let him do it, history won't forgive us. Nor will the rest of the world.</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://www.thenation.com" target="_blank">The Nation</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>
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A woman marks down her vote on a ballot for the Democratic presidential primary election at a polling place on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020 in Herndon, Virginia. Samuel Corum / Getty Images
By Oliver Milman
The climate crisis is set to be a significant factor in a U.S. presidential election for the first time, with new polling showing a clear majority of American voters want decisive action to deal with the threats posed by global heating.
<p>Seven in 10 voters support government action to address climate change, with three-quarters wanting the U.S. to generate all of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind within 15 years.</p><p>Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a presidential candidate who supports the complete shift to clean energy, with a further seven in 10 voters supporting US involvement in the Paris climate agreement, which commits countries to tackling dangerous heating. Two-thirds of voters said climate should be a priority for whoever wins the election.</p><p>"There may be a divide on Capitol Hill but the large majority of us are worried about climate change and want to see leaders deal with it," said Ed Maibach, director of George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication. "This is the first election where climate change has featured heavily. It's unlike anything we've seen in American politics before."</p><p>Over the past decade, the crisis has become a sharply partisan political topic as Republicans embraced denial and obfuscation of the escalating crisis. Donald Trump called climate science a "hoax" and his administration set about dismantling every policy put in place by Barack Obama to reduce planet-heating emissions.</p><p>However, the new polling, on behalf of the Guardian, Vice Media Group and Covering Climate Now, by Climate Nexus, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, shows that the political landscape among voters appears to be shifting.</p>
Do you support or oppose each of the following policies as part of the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic?
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQzODcyMC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNjg4MzY4OX0.B-bt9mltOhK0MHFbzK8G3_8sBkDAeUsAWm-AhNZYoxQ/img.png?width=980" id="acd43" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8724178274b9f96e27055f74a1bafe20" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQzODcyMi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MTk1OTAzMH0.F8_i9pQeThex_R0SLjOoE0Xk11avxGilB6n6RmRzxe8/img.png?width=980" id="cde28" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="36da755f25cfa2d1120f46f112e7d577" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p>Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed over the climate crisis, with 90% describing it as either a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem and more than eight in 10 supporting a Green New Deal, a vast government-led climate program, to combat it.</p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/22/us-politics-minute-sign-up-email-newsletter-app-notification" target="_blank"></a><p>This concern is filtering through, to a lesser degree, to Republican voters. More than half say climate change is a very or somewhat serious problem, with 41% backing the Green New Deal, despite it being widely vilified by Republican party leaders. A further 51% of Republican voters support U.S. involvement in the Paris climate accords.</p><p>The polling suggests Trump, who has triggered the U.S. withdrawal from the agreement and routinely disparages climate science, will be the first U.S. president to face a voter backlash over the climate crisis. His Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, meanwhile, has vowed to reduce U.S. energy emissions to net zero by 2050 and promised a $2tn investment to create millions of new jobs in clean energy industries.</p>
<p>"Republican officeholders really do have to worry about this," said Maibach. "Young Republicans are becoming less accepting of the party line that climate change isn't real or isn't a serious problem. They don't want climate denial any more, moderate Republicans don't want climate denial any more and women voters largely don't want to support climate denialist candidates any more either."</p><p>The surge in voter appetite for climate action follows a barrage of disasters that have hit the U.S. recently, including huge wildfires that have scorched the west coast and powerful hurricanes that have pummeled the U.S. south. Scientists say rising global temperatures, caused by humans burning fossil fuels, are aiding the spread of wildfires and making hurricanes more intense.</p><p>Trump's first term in office has also seen a growing youth-led climate protest movement, with the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg as its figurehead. Younger U.S. voters see the climate crisis as a top-tier issue, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/?utm_source=adaptivemailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=19-11-25%20climate&org=982&lvl=100&ite=5010&lea=1139465&ctr=0&par=1&trk=" target="_blank">polling has shown</a>, while the latest opinion research shows broad support for a greater focus on the issue in the media.</p><p>More than six in 10 respondents said the media should explicitly outline the link between extreme weather events and the climate crisis, while nearly three-quarters want moderators to ask questions about the climate crisis during the three televised presidential debates, which start next week. In 2016, no questions were asked about climate during the debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>
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A black bear cub climbs a tree at Tongass National Forest in Alaska. sarkophoto / iStock / Getty Images Plus
America's largest national forest, Tongass National Forest in Alaska, will be opened up to logging and road construction after the Trump administration finalizes its plans to open up the forest on Friday, according to The New York Times.
<p>The plans to open up the forest to logging have been in the works for years. In March, the Trump administration faced a setback when a federal judge halted plans to open 1.8 million acres to logging and road building because the administration had failed to evaluate the environmental impact fully, as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/national-forest-trump-logging-tongass-%202645476974.html" target="_self">EcoWatch</a> reported at the time.</p><p>The roughly 9 million acres that the administration wants to open up now have been protected since the 2001 by the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, or Roadless Rule, which prohibits construction in nationally protected wild areas, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/24/tongass-national-forest-trump-administration-logging" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. The U.S Forest Service is expected to release a full environmental impact statement later on Friday, saying that lifting the rule will not damage the 16.7 million-acre temperate rainforest in southeast Alaska. The administration will consequently revoke the Roadless Rule and move forward with plans to lease the land for logging.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQzODc5OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTAyNzY2MX0.SZTIW9byPmjJzEqUrAY4midPIAU14f50liCctiggGcI/img.jpg?width=980" id="c3d9b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="646dd5c09a8e4f58d9f702f13abedff5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Aerial view of the Tongass National Forest. Alan Wu / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
<p><br></p><p>The drive to open up Tongass National Forest to logging, as well as energy and mineral exploration, started in 2018 when Alaska's Governor Bill Walker asked the federal government to consider removing protections for the forest. While Alaska's senators have supported the idea, environmental advocates have criticized it, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/environment-juneau-bill-walker-forests-alaska-14542223458790b775b98c1384cb333a" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AP</a>.</p><p>The U.S. Forest Service evaluated several plans, including more moderate ones that would maintain protections for 80 percent of the forest and another that would have opened up logging and road construction to 2.3 million acres. The Forest Service, however, decided to fully remove the Roadless Rule protections and open 9 million acres to developers and loggers, according to a <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2020/09/24/us-department-agriculture-releases-final-environmental-impact" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">statement</a> from the Department of Agriculture, as The New York Times reported.</p>
<p>"This administration has opted to take the road well traveled by continuing to spend tens of millions of dollars every year to expand logging roads for a dying old-growth timber industry," said Andy Moderow, a director for the Alaska Wilderness League, in a statement, as The Guardian reported. "This is bad for people, bad for a sustainable economy and bad for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a>."</p><p>Earthjustice, an environmental legal-advocacy group that successfully stopped development in Tongass in March, said it would fight the plan in the courts. Katie Glover, an attorney for Earthjustice, said, "We will use every tool available to continue defending this majestic and irreplaceable national forest," as the AP reported.</p>
<p>Scientists have also criticized the plan, saying that Tongass is one of the world's largest carbon sinks, absorbing nearly 8 percent of the greenhouse gas pollution that the U.S. emits. Scientists also note that cutting down the old growth trees will put trapped greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere, which is particularly imprudent when the world is grappling with increasingly severe heat waves and wildfires triggered by the climate crisis, as The New York Times reported.</p><p>"The Forest Service's environmental impact statement is junk science on assessing the impacts of releasing the carbon," said Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist and president of Geos Institute, a nonprofit organization that studies climate change, to The New York Times. "They are saying that the carbon that would be released by logging the timber is insignificant. There's no science that supports their analysis."</p><p>That sentiment was echoed by Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, who vowed to fight the lifting of the Roadless Rule, as the AP reported. She said in a statement that the new plan will pour "gasoline on the inferno of climate change. These towering ancient trees take enormous amounts of carbon out of the air and we need them now more than ever. We'll do everything possible to keep these magnificent giants standing for centuries to come."</p>
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Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg protests in front of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm on September 25, 2020. Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP / Getty Images
By Ruby Russell and Ajit Niranjan
Hamstrung by coronavirus lockdowns, frustrated school strikers have spent months staging digital protests against world leaders failing to act urgently on climate change.
<p>Today they are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-global-climate-strikers-take-on-inactive-leaders/a-55039689" target="_blank">taking to the streets once more</a>.</p><p>The Fridays for Futures movement, which started with activist Greta Thunberg skipping school to sit alone outside the Swedish Parliament in 2018, has become a global youth force calling for climate justice. But a surge in support last year was hobbled after coronavirus lockdowns closed schools and kept children at home. </p><p>The protest on Friday is the group's first global action since the pandemic struck and follows meetings between prominent activists and world leaders. Last month, Thunberg and three other climate activists presented German Chancellor Angela Merkel with <a href="https://climateemergencyeu.org/#letter" target="_blank">a letter signed by nearly 125,000 people</a> demanding EU leaders "stop pretending that we can solve the climate and ecological crisis without treating it as a crisis."</p>
<p>They have called for an immediate halt to investments and subsidies in fossil fuels and, in Germany, pressured the government to bring forward its deadline to phase out coal from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-approves-coal-phaseout-by-2038/a-54040605" target="_blank">2038 to 2030</a>, and to go carbon-neutral by 2035 instead of 2050.</p><p>Line Niedeggen, a physics student at the University of Heidelberg and Fridays for Future spokesperson, believes Germany has a responsibility to lead on climate action. Historically it has been one of the world's <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/climate-emissions-paris-agreement/a-55044341" target="_blank">biggest carbon emitters</a>, she says, is also rich enough to adopt cleaner energy systems, and last month it adopted presidency of the EU Council.</p><p>"We have to use this role as the leader of one of the biggest emitters in the world to start a change of direction because, scientifically, 2020 is the last year we can make changes to actually reach 1.5 degrees," Niedeggen told DW. </p>
Pandemic Stalls Protests
<p>Last November, the head of the UN Environment Program was among the public and scientific figures to warn that 2020 offered a last chance to cut emissions. Then, few could have suspected this deadline would coincide with an unprecedented public health emergency.</p><p>The pandemic has <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/tough-times-ahead-for-climate-protesters-during-corona-pandemic/a-52978469" target="_blank">dealt climate activism a blow</a>. Niedeggen says that as a movement demanding that the world act on scientific advice, the school strikers took lockdown restrictions extremely seriously, halted public protests immediately and took their activism online.</p><p>On April 24, Fridays for Future organized a "digital strike," with Niedeggen hosting a that racked up close to a quarter of a million views. "We were not physically standing together, but we were all fighting together," she says.</p><p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/climate-strikers-get-inventive-during-the-covid-19-crisis-fridays-for-future/a-53229262" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Activists also gathered thousands of placards</a> from across Germany to lay out in front of the German Bundestag around the central slogan: "Fight every crisis."</p><p>Still, corona inevitably pushed <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/life-after-coronavirus-we-can-shape-a-totally-different-world/a-53496208" target="_blank">climate change down the agenda</a>, and according to a poll conducted by Postbank only 6% of German 16 to 18-year-olds joined an online strike, compared to nearly a third who had been to a physical Fridays for Future protest.</p><p>Elsewhere in the world, the shift to online activism may have been even more damaging.</p><p>Fatou Jeng, a climate activist from Gambia, says that in Africa, school strikes are anyway less effective than they are in Europe, although they have inspired other action. Her own activism has mainly focused on conservation work, planting trees to protect vulnerable coastlines, and educating communities about climate change. </p><p>Most of these activities have had to stop as a result of COVID-19, and while Gambian activists have continued to use digital means to pressure those in power, "the provincial areas which are more vulnerable to the impact of climate change don't really have access to the internet," Jeng told DW.</p>
Opportunity for a New Normal
<p>Last September's Global Climate Strike drew young and old protestors around the world, with organizers estimating a global turnout of 7.6 million, including an estimated 270,000 people in Berlin. Activists have adjusted this year's event to account for social distancing and different levels of coronavirus restrictions in cities taking part.</p><p>They say COVID-19 also presents opportunities.</p><p>"The pandemic shows that we can change our normal daily life, and we are very able to adjust to a situation of crisis," she says. The key question is how economies get back on their feet: "We have the possibility to build a new normal, to build a renewable world order, and an environmentally just, climate-just normal for everybody."</p><p>In July, Jeng was among 20 female Fridays for Future activists from the Global South to sign an open letter to G20 finance ministers warning that their decisions in "exclusive backrooms" over stimulus packages and corporate bailouts would "lock in development pathways for decades."</p><p>"The system is not broken, it was built to be unjust. We don't need recovery, we need a reboot," the letter reads, stressing that "black people, indigenous peoples and people of color," have been disproportionately hit by the economic, climate and coronavirus crises. </p>Policy 'Not Quite There Yet'
<p>Figures on stimulus spending do not suggest their words had much impact. The ministers were criticized for failing to relieve the debt of poorer countries, and according to <a href="https://www.energypolicytracker.org/region/g20/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Energy Policy Tracker</a>, G20 countries by August had pledged $169 billion (142 billion euros) to fossil fuels since the beginning of the pandemic.</p><p>Katrin Uba, associate professor of political science at Uppsala University in Sweden, is researching Fridays for Future. She says that despite the movement raising awareness and gaining access to policymakers, real policy change "is not there yet."</p><p>Still, she stresses that social movements go through waves of mobilization as public attention on their core issues ebbs and flows. And perhaps one of Fridays for Future's biggest achievements is birthing a politically active generation that will keep the fight up long after corona becomes a memory. </p><p>"We know clearly from our research that many of the people who came to the streets hadn't done any protesting before in their lives," she told DW. "And we also know that if you do one protest, you are likely to do more."</p>From Your Site Articles
- 60,000-Strong Fridays for Future Protest in Hamburg, Germany ... ›
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This fall brings three new environmental movies. David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet | Official Trailer
This week marks the official start of fall, but longer nights and colder days can make it harder to spend time outdoors. Luckily, there are several inspiring environmental films that can be streamed at home.
1. Kiss the Ground
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ccc5f0c92a5603e68aec39e56b0db02a"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K3-V1j-zMZw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p><strong>Streaming On: Netflix</strong></p><p><strong>Premiere Date: Sept. 22</strong></p><p>Between <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wildfires-california-washington-oregon-photos-2647585008.html" target="_self">wildfires devastating the U.S. West Coast</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tropical-storm-beta-landfall-2647760268.html" target="_self">storms battering the Gulf</a>, the impacts of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> can feel overwhelming right now. <em><a href="https://kissthegroundmovie.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kiss the Ground</a> </em>offers an alternative to all of the bad news by focusing on solutions.</p><p>The film, directed by Josh and Rebecca Tickell and narrated by Woody Harrelson, explains how we can heal the Earth through "regenerative agriculture," farming practices that draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and into soil as a way to restore soil health, which in turn boosts ecosystems and food supplies.</p><p>"<em>Kiss the Ground </em>shows how feasible it is to make these changes at a grassroots level immediately and make a truly substantive impact with low cost and easy to implement solutions," Executive Producer RJ Jain said in an email. "This is why I got involved."</p>2. Public Trust: The Fight for America's Public Lands
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5338f7a2931e356910026e5fd76fac56"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jsKMTAaj_wQ?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p><strong>Streaming On: YouTube</strong></p><p><strong>Premiere Date: Sept. 25</strong></p><p>This <a href="https://www.patagonia.com/films/public-trust/" target="_blank">award-winning documentary</a> tells the stories of Indigenous activists, journalists, whistleblowers and historians working to protect America's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands" target="_self">public lands</a>. The film focuses on three political struggles: the shrinking of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bears-ears" target="_self">Bears Ears</a> National Monument in Utah, the mining of Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota and the opening of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Arctic-National-Wildlife-Refuge" target="_self">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</a> to fossil fuel exploration.</p><p><em>Public Trust</em> was directed by David Garrett Byars and produced by Jeremy Rubingh. Patagonia Films, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and actor Robert Redford are executive producers. It will be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGjnIG7puzY" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">released</a> on YouTube in time for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/national-public-lands-day-2640656776.html" target="_self">National Public Lands Day</a>.</p><p>"Our country is fortunate to have millions of acres of public lands, including National Parks, Monuments, Wildlife Refuges and Wilderness set aside for future generations," Redford said. "Sadly, these lands that belong to you and me are under unprecedented threats from the greed of big corporations, eager to weaken restrictions in the pursuit of profits. Many of our current politicians are also to blame. <em>Public Trust</em> tells the story of citizens who are fighting back. It's a much-needed wake-up call for all of us who want to preserve our unique and wild cultural heritage."<br><br>It will be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGjnIG7puzY" target="_blank">released</a> on YouTube at 2 p.m. EDT Friday in time for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/national-public-lands-day-2640656776.html" target="_self">National Public Lands Day</a>.<br></p>3. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="156438a30836a765d7a92982545fc334"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B_OFZvAd05Y?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p><strong>Streaming On: Netflix</strong></p><p><strong>Premiere Date: Oct. 4</strong></p><p>Beloved nature broadcaster <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/David-Attenborough" target="_self">David Attenborough</a> has spent his career introducing viewers to the wonders of our planet. In recent years, his footage of albatrosses swallowing <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" target="_self">plastic</a> in <em>Blue Planet II</em> has been credited with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/2018-fighting-plastic-waste-2624606566.html" target="_self">helping to ramp up</a> the global fight against plastic pollution. Now, in this <a href="https://www.wwf.org.uk/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">World Wildlife Fund</a> (WWF)-produced <a href="https://www.attenborough.film/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">documentary</a>, he reflects on the defining moments of his career and the devastating changes he has witnessed.</p><p><em>David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet,</em> which was also produced by Silverback Films and directed by Alastair Fothergill, Jonnie Hughes and Keith Scholey, features an intimate conversation between Attenborough and Sir Michael Palin as the broadcaster reflects on his life and a career that took him to every continent on Earth. In addition to streaming on Netflix, the movie will be available in select theaters starting Sept. 28.</p><p>"For decades, David has brought the natural world to the homes of audiences worldwide, but there has never been a more significant moment for him to share his own story and reflections," WWF executive producer Colin Butfield said in a <a href="https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/david-attenborough-life-our-planet" target="_blank">statement</a>. "This film coincides with a monumental year for environmental action as world leaders make critical decisions on nature and climate. It sends a powerful message from the most inspiring and celebrated naturalist of our time."</p>From Your Site Articles
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