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I can’t explain the mixed emotions that I feel whenever I read the headlines on my social media feeds. Speechless, because what can I say or do to stop the killing, the bombing, the senseless hurting of others that the US government does and allows to be done to children, to paramedics, to doctors, to students and teachers, to journalists, to hard-working blue-collar individuals and farmers because they can and will personally profit from it?
Anger.
I feel this emotion the most because no matter how hard I—and others we like me—scream and fight back we cannot stop them. Anger, because we are but ants to be trodden upon in the billionaires’ quest for global dominance and Malthusian fantasies of replacing the 99% with AI and robots, things that can’t talk back about the injustice of their slavery and would nuke us in a heat beat if allowed to. Anger, because we will suffer and shoulder the blame for our country’s evil deeds while those who actively commit them will walk away scot-free.
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This
is most evident in the the comment sections of blogs and social media
sites like Twitter and Facebook. When someone responds to your
carefully thought-out comment with a string of curse words, or worse,
a nonsensical tirade that begins, “Climate change is a vast
Russian-financed conspiracy begun in the seventeenth century by the horse
antibiotic pharmaceutical manufacturers working for anti-vax
Illuminati sex traffickers led by the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein,”
you gotta wonder. What planet do they live on?
Can’t
they observe the severe
rise in summer temperatures and wild changes
in the jet
streams?
Can’t
they see how much money is changing hands behind the scenes so
politicians are more than willing to bend over backward and protect blatant pedophiles? Can’t
they understand that Sleepy-Creepy-Jim-Crow-Joe-Warmonger isn’t a “charismatic and dynamic president”? (Yes, some
poor deluded fool actually wrote that on
a post on Facebook. No, I don’t think they were joking.)
Perhaps when you’ve been convinced that, “War
is peace,” and “Ignorance is strength,” you don’t really
exist in this reality after all?
Here’s
my attempt to write a protest song from
the ear worm that crawled into my mind and kept repeating itself this
week:
What planet are you on?
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The oil and gas industry has known that we’re destroying the planet for a lot longer than you might believe according to new reporting from DeSmog Blog. This week Lee Camp blows open Big Oil’s big secret. They’ve been covering up the fact that their industry, left unchecked, would lead to serious climate change since at least 1959. Now we all know what oil executives knew more than 50 years ago. But because of their significant efforts to cover the truth up humanity is facing a dire crisis. Big Oil did it all for profit and they’re hoping that with the insane wealth they generated, partially through their lies, that they’ll be able to skip out on the worst impacts of a warming planet. It’s a bet that the general public never had a say in.
There is no Planet B. This is all we got!
COP-Out 26
by C.A. Matthews
[The
leaders of the UNFCCC ] gladly welcome those who caused the crisis. COP26 has
done nothing but pretend and greenwash. --Mitzi Jonelle Tan, member of Youth
Advocates for Climate Action from the Philippines
Never fear, children! Benevolent Big Oil executives will be here to take
care of us all in the coming age of frequent famines, floods, and fires. No, really. Stop crying...
That's the take-away I got from the news blurbs coming out of COP26, this year's big UN Climate Emergency gathering. The
fossil fuel industry had far more representatives at the Glasgow summit than
the environmental groups and organizations had--at least 503 were connected in some manner to the petroleum industry.
Obviously, oil men's opinions
matter more than those of silly environmentalists. Treehugger statistics that (some) journalists quote only add to the public's worries about the Earth's ever-increasing temperatures and rapidly rising sea levels. We'd all feel better if we ignored the science and kept driving our big gas-guzzling vehicles to upscale steak houses. Never mind that 99% of the planet's population will suffer because of the greenhouse gases coming out of the Northern Hemisphere. Big oceans separate us--big oceans full of plastic water bottle islands the size of France, that is.
The
fossil fuel industry has spent decades denying and delaying real action
on the climate crisis, which is why this is such a huge problem. Their influence is one of the biggest reasons why 25 years of UN climate talks have not led to real cuts in global emissions. -- Murray Worthy, Global Witness
So, what kind of actions can we expect from the
big name signatories who attended COP26? The shutting down of carbon-dumping coal-fired
power plants? The building of more windmill and solar farms to take their place? The
outlawing of petroleum powered engines worldwide? Looking at past environmental
summits, I wouldn't get my hopes up too high. The wealthiest countries'
representatives always give the nicest speeches, full of pleasant platitudes
which promise the moon, but they rarely deliver. As long as rich nations can
get away with burning fossil fuels at the expense of the rest of the planet's
health, they will.
Over the past 25 years, the
richest 10% of the global population has been responsible for more than half of
all carbon emissions... Rank injustice and inequality on this scale is a
cancer. If we don’t act now, this century may be our last.--Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General
[The world’s
rich] consume and consume and consume with no thought. --Patricia
Espinosa, UN Executive Secretary, UNFCCC
Even more telling, studies show how the top 1% wealthiest, a.k.a.
"the billionaires," have caused and are causing more damage to our
climate than billions of economically disadvantaged human beings, especially indigenous peoples. Yes, a ballroom of billionaires
pollute more than a good portion of the planet's population. But did the COP26 summit
address the damage to the climate these extreme polluters create and come up with
solutions to stop them?
Why not ask the Big Oil execs, since they're a part of
the top 1%. They do seem to be calling all the shots.
The greenwashing of environmental damages that the rich, the
billionaires, the Big Oil execs and the fossil fuel industry cause is beyond
deplorable. It's immoral. It should be criminal, and these criminals should be
held accountable for their actions. But the odds of that happening in the year
2021 are slim to none.
Because until all human beings are seen as equals in the eyes of the law,
we will be at the mercy of Big Oil and the billionaires and their politician puppets. The rich and powerful don't
seem to care about the Climate Emergency. They're not worried about their mansions being washed off the map, probably because they can
afford tickets on Jeff Bezos' rocket. When things get bad, they'll just fly into space and live on an Elysium wheel, twirling many miles above the dying carcass of the Earth.
But all is not lost. Listen to climate activist Greta Thunberg discuss what she believes is happening and what we should do next in this podcast from The Juice Media:
UN chief Antonio Guterres has said that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C is on "life support", and the COP26 summit would probably not see governments make the pledges needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by enough.https://t.co/IrKFZDKfxp
From the front lines of the nonviolent struggle to stop the Line 3
tar sands pipeline to the COP 26 global climate talks in Glasgow,
Indigenous leaders and their allies are making one thing clear: In the
struggle for a living climate, Indigenous voices cannot and will not be
ignored.
At the COP 26 talks, Indigenous leaders from around the world led a
march of 150,000 people in the streets of Glasgow to demand world
leaders take real action to keep fossil fuels in the ground, not hide
behind false solutions.
A panel at the COP about Indigenous resistance to Line 3
highlighted the human rights abuses that took place in Northern
Minnesota to force through the hyper-polluting pipeline -- the
equivalent of 50 coal power plants.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, hundreds of water protectors are facing
criminal charges for standing in defense of the water, the climate, and
the treaty rights of the Anishnaabeg people. They stood against the
pipeline with their bodies, and were met with police forces - directly
funded by Enbridge - and their surveillance, harassments, physical
torture ("pain compliance"), and excessive charges, including felonies.
Water protectors and their supporters are demanding that Minnesota
Attorney General Keith Ellison and Governor Walz work with county
prosecutors to drop the charges against the water protectors who have
resisted the Line 3 pipeline.
Indigenous people are responsible for protecting 80% of the world’s
biodiversity. However, projects like Line 3 demonstrate the extent to
which Indigenous rights have been continuously ignored and violated by
26 years of COP climate policy.
Our message is clear -- it’s time to back promises with action. It’s time to drop the charges
against those who stood against a project that never should have been
permitted and against a police force that never should have been bought
with Enbridge’s money to begin with.
In a near-future dystopian world, hope blossoms where mutual aid and democracy begins...
Zonta’s world is turned upside down when Jake arrives at the commune to investigate the disappearance of agents of the Authority. Can she persuade him to switch sides before the Protectors (antifascist fighters) take action?
The
ocean is boiling billions of marine lifeforms off the coast of British
Columbia. It literally steamed the clams right inside their shells. The ocean also
burned like something out of an apocalyptic horror movie this past week in the
Gulf of Mexico due to a burst pipeline. Hundreds have died of heat-related
illnesses in the Pacific Northwest. Forest fires are burning in the West of the
US in record numbers while hurricanes have caused massive flooding in the East.
Yet
most Americans will continue to go about their business, as usual, without a
thought as to how any of these disturbing occurrences matter. Heck, they'll be
lucky if they even catch more than a ten second blurb about any of these stories on a
mainstream media news outlet.
"Wet
bulb"
conditions can kill human beings in temperatures of 95+ degrees
Fahrenheit with high humidity because our bodies simply can't sweat and
cool
ourselves down in those conditions.The
way our planet is rapidly warming because of fossil fuel burning these wet bulb
conditions might soon become all-too-common in parts of the US not generally
thought to be at risk. "The Rational National" explains this
horrifying weather phenomenon in his short video below.
The
term "global warming" has long gone out of fashion, but perhaps it's
more accurate than ever. "Climate change" is less offensive to some,
but "climate crisis" or "climate emergency" or even "climate
catastrophe" seems more appropriate to me. Boiling oceans and human beings dying
by the thousands in extreme heat waves are catastrophic emergencies and
not simple changes to the climate. Those that argue that rising temperatures are a part of a "natural
cycle" aren't facing facts.
The mean
temps have been going up steadily since the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution. That means humans have played a large hand in this current climate
catastrophe. We can't put all the blame on the occasional volcanic eruption.
Hmm…
Wonder what we've been burning and dumping into the atmosphere since the start
of the Industrial Revolution? Could it be fossil fuels?
Solar-powered
bullet trains and wind-powered electric cars--why do we shy away from these
greener options when our planet and our very lives are at stake? The fear of
the unknown is one answer, but humanity's seemingly inherent suicidal
tendencies (a.k.a. "capitalistic greed") are another. We shouldn't believe everything Big Oil shoves down our
throats as their micro-plastics fill our water supplies and Big Coal's heavy particulates
from coal-powered heavy industry fill our lungs. Our survival instincts alone
should motivate us to take decisive action.
But
they don't.
If
marine life boiling alive in their shells doesn't motivate us to take decisive
actions to negate the effects of climate change, what will it take? Notice I
didn't mention the health and well-being of our fellow humans. There's ample
evidence that indicates many people don't give a sh*t about what happens to
their neighbors.
Looking at my Twitter feed… I can tell we're fine if others don't
have access to health care, experience homelessness, or go to bed hungry. Really,
why would the possibility of our neighbors roasting alive in a severe heat wave
or a few millions of acres of forest fires be of any concern to those who can
afford air conditioning or an Alpine home atop of a very tall mountain, well above the tree line?
With so
many signs demonstrating how we're destroying the planet through our fossil
fuel abuse, we can't simply keep pleading ignorance. Even those in deep climate
change denial know we're to blame. Whales and dolphins don't build leaky
underwater pipelines and exploding oil rigs in the Gulf, do they? Squirrels
don't play with matches and burn down their forest homes, darkening the skies
with smoke and particulates. Cows and
pigs don't twist the animal feedlot (CAFO) owners' arms and force them to dump
millions of tons of animal wastes into our rivers and lakes, creating toxic
blue-green algae blooms.
It's
time to stop the lie that humanity isn't the culprit behind this climate
catastrophe. It's time for each of us to stop and do something--anything--to
help our Earth heal. We need to care--a lot--about our neighbors and what
happens to them in the coming days.
The
ocean may continue to boil in the weeks, months, and years ahead, but at least
we should care that it is--and vow to
keep working hard until it doesn't.
Related
Articles and Videos:
The Ocean is on Fire from Gas Leak from Underwater Pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico
As you’re likely aware, our democratic institutions are in peril. New
Jim Crow-style state laws combined with other insidious voter
suppression tactics systematically disenfranchise BIPOC
(Black/Indigenous/People of Color). That’s why the Lakota People’s Law
Project has taken legal action against the State of South Dakota. We
have now officially joined the Oglala and Rosebud Nations, Standing Rock
Sioux tribal member Hoksila White Mountain, and others as plaintiffs in
a lawsuit alleging that South Dakota has repeatedly failed to register
Native voters, in violation of the National Voter Registration Act.
Our partners at the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and Demos submitted the filing
to the U.S. District Court today, updating a lawsuit initiated in 2020
to include Hoksila and Lakota Law as plaintiffs. As you may remember, in
2018 and 2020, we worked hard with the Standing Rock Nation to ensure
that Native voices were heard at the ballot throughout the country.
Unfortunately, in far too many cases, systemic discrimination still
prevented BIPOC from casting ballots.
The National Voter Registration Act — sometimes called Motor-Voter —
is a federal law requiring that states help their citizens register to
vote through the Department of Motor Vehicles and other state-run public
assistance agencies. Time after time, South Dakota has failed to live
up to its responsibility to assist Native People with voting.
The examples are legion, but here’s one. Before a recent election,
Native voter Tyler Eagle Bull walked 30 miles in 12-degree weather to
submit a change of address request for his Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program benefits. He wasn’t initially offered a voter
registration application, and a Department of Social Services staff
person then threw his completed voter registration form in the trash.
South Dakota, of course, has long been known for discriminatory
practices. For some historical perspective: the state prevented Native
people from voting until the 1940s — a violation of the Indian
Citizenship Act of 1924 — and Todd, Shannon, and Washabaugh counties
refused to follow laws that protected the rights of Native Americans to
vote until 1974. And in 1984, the county auditor in Fall River, which
includes part of the Pine Ridge Reservation, refused to accept voter
registrations from Native American citizens.
We know this is all part of a larger pattern of nationwide
disenfranchisement. As of May, the Brennan Center for Justice had
tracked the enactment of at least 22 bills with restrictive provisions
in 14 states, a dramatic increase from prior years. These brazen attacks
on our democracy are a big reason why it’s so critical that we continue
to support one another. As our ally, you’re fighting for — and winning —
a better future for the next generations.
Wopila tanka — thank you for helping to protect our democracy!
Chase Iron Eyes
Co-Director & Lead Counsel
The Lakota People’s Law Project
***
BREAKING:
Whistleblowers just filed a formal complaint revealing appalling
conditions in a detention camp called Fort Bliss, where hundreds of
children are currently being held.
It was extremely hard to read -- children not having access
to clean clothing, regular showers, and being supervised by people with
zero experience in child welfare. There are widespread reports of depression, anxiety, and stress.
I wish this were a one-off, but it’s the latest in a growing
scandal of shocking treatment of children at the warehouse-like
detention facilities that have become the backbone of the current
immigration system.
This is completely unacceptable. This is not who we can or should be as a country,
and it’s urgent that these facilities are shut down and replaced with a
compassionate solution that welcomes children with dignity.
Children should NOT be in detention PERIOD. Health professionals are
clear that any length of detention is damaging, and what makes it all
the more heartbreaking is that there are clear alternatives to locking up children in facilities.
A case-management approach could quickly process children while
keeping them together with trusted caregivers and bringing
community-based organizations into the reunification process would
dramatically speed things up.
The stories and reports coming out of these facilities are crystal
clear evidence that the inhumanity the Trump administration pushed into
every corner of our immigration system is far from gone. Every day children are detained, this suffering continues, and we have to act.
Detention has a storied and sad history in the U.S. It’s been
systematically used to incarcerate Black, Indigenous and other people of
color since the forced removal of Indigenous people from their lands
all the way through the WWII internment of Japanese Americans and
beyond.
It is time that we condemn this inhumane practice to the history
books and meet children with the love, compassion, and dignity we’d want
any child in our life to receive.
Speechless
