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Author Topic: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Procrastination  (Read 9807 times)

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Surly1

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I Don’t Grieve Over His Cruelty. I Grieve Over Yours.
« Reply #105 on: December 09, 2019, 10:42:23 am »


I Don’t Grieve Over His Cruelty. I Grieve Over Yours.


I really don’t care about him.

I know you think I do, but my sadness really has nothing to do with him.

I know who he is—and more accurately, I know what he is.

I know that he is just a mirror.

He has simply revealed clearly the disfigured ugliness of the place I call home and the people I live here alongside—and that is the thing I grieve over. And this is not the mourning over a singular loss, it is a daily grieving.

I grieve when I see elementary school teachers dressed up like a border wall for Halloween.
I grieve when I see white a woman screaming obscenities at two Muslims teenagers at a stop light.
I grieve when I see a Jewish professor’s office littered with spray-painted swastikas.
I grieve when I watch a father of four being tackled by ICE agents outside immigration offices.
I grieve when I witness white high school seniors making a “Heil Hitler” arm gesture during class photos.
I grieve when I see the contempt from white friends, when young black men die at traffic stops.
I grieve when I find the most vile sickness on my social media feed, hurled toward people of color and women and transgender people.
I grieve when I hear professed Christian pastors calling for the killing of LGBTQ people.
I grieve when I see rambling, racist tirades on subway cars filled with families with young children.
I grieve when I see supremacist candidates being elected and re-elected.
I grieve when I overhear dehumanizing conversations from old, white men, about Democratic women leaders, in crowded cafés.
I grieve when I sit across holiday tables, and witness bigoted tirades that I’d have thought people I knew and loved were not capable of.

And though all of these things are undoubtedly emboldened by him and encouraged by him and celebrated by him—that is not the source of my despair. It is the reality that all of this vicious, toxic, filth that we are infected with today—is something you are largely fine with. The rising hatred is not alarming or discomforting enough to you, to move you to action or to speak against it.

Oh sure, you might inwardly twinge with discomfort at one or two of the most egregious offenses, but by and large you’re good with it all.

With your silence as much as with your volume, you show me you are more with him than you are against him, that you are more like him than different from him—and that you and I are increasingly morally incompatible.

So yes, he is a mirror, and I am seeing you my countrymen and women through him.

That is why I grieve, friend.

That is why I don’t see America or my church or my neighborhood or my family the same anymore, and I’m not sure I ever will again.

The greatest tragedy to me, isn’t him. It isn’t that the person supposedly leading our country lacks a single benevolent impulse, that he is impervious to compassion, incapable of nobility, and mortally allergic to simple kindness.

The greatest tragedy, is how many Americans he now represents.

And that he represents you.

AGelbert

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« Last Edit: December 09, 2019, 06:39:36 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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January 18, 2020

Harvard Law School Students Disrupt Recruitment Event, Calling On Major Law Firm To #DropExxon
By Eoin Higgins, Commondreams.org. Over 100 students from Harvard Law School staged a public protest against a recruitment dinner hosted by law firm Paul Weiss on Wednesday night, calling for the company to cut ties with fossil fuel giant Exxon. In a statement, the demonstrators said they were taking action because of the severity of the climate crisis. "This is a do-or-die moment in human history," said student Aaron Regunberg, one of the action's leaders, in a statement. "We have just a few years left to rein in corporate polluters and address the climate crisis." -more-
 
Nearly All Americans Want To Get Off Fossil Fuels
By Basav Sen, Otherwords. Late last year, The Washington Post reported a remarkable poll finding: Nearly half of American adults — 46 percent — believe the U.S. needs to “drastically reduce” fossil fuel use in the near future to address the climate crisis. Another 41 percent favor a more gradual reduction. In short, almost 90 percent of us support transitioning off fossil fuels — including over half of Republicans, whose elected officials overwhelmingly support the industry. -more-
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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  Heard on the Half Shell: Shellfish Growers Share Their Voice

582 views•Apr 16, 2021 21K subscribers


The Shellfish Growers Climate Coalition has grown from just seven shellfish growers in partnership with The Nature Conservancy in 2017 to more than 220 shellfish industry representatives across 24 U.S. states and Canada today. We’re engaging policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels around climate action by sharing our own personal stories about the impacts climate change has brought to our lives and livelihoods. This Earth Day, we’re lifting our voices to help our customers, colleagues, and Members of Congress understand just what’s at stake if we don’t act now: the sustainability of our businesses, the long-term viability of the shellfish industry, and the future of our planet.

Keep up with The Nature Conservancy's latest efforts to protect nature and preserve life on Twitter (http://bit.ly/eDzkmN) and Facebook (http://on.fb.me/pSsCIr)

Text NATURE to 97779 to join The Nature Conservancy on text.

To sign-up for nature e-news visit: https://support.nature.org/site/SPageNavigator/supporter/join_us_main.html
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click here to subscribe.

July 13, 2021




Europe’s Biomass Blunder Shows Why Trusting 🐘🦖 GOP’s Trillion Trees Climate 😉 Plan Would Be A Bad Idea

The American Conservation Coalition’s campaign to greenwash Republicans exists to generate ‘man bites dog’ type stories, like hits in the Washington Post and Fox News on Monday, about how maybe the GOP isn’t so bad on climate change, since they spout catchphrases like “innovation” and claim to support climate policies (that actually reward polluters), like the Trillion Trees proposal. 

While on the surface the GOP’s trillion trees sound like they might be a great win for the environment and climate, we already know what the reality of this sort of approach would mean: more pollution. We know this is the case because it’s already happening, thanks to a Sequoia-sized loophole in a European Union policy similarly aimed at reducing emissions. 

A recent CNN feature on Enviva’s North Carolina wood pellet production facility (and a major feature by Danielle Purifoy, writing for Scalawag Magazine, Southerly, and Environmental Health News, last fall) make it clear that subsidizing the timber industry is no climate solution. 

It started in 2009, when the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive “classified biomass as a renewable energy source — on par with wind and solar power.” Instead of burning coal, they could burn biomass, and supposedly reduce emissions by making use of waste wood that would otherwise go unused. Unfortunately, though, the policy doesn't require that it has to be waste wood, so now companies are felling forests and sowing plantations across the American Southeast to satisfy European energy demands. (Seriously, the paralells to the slave trade are stark.) As a result, those communities are facing dangerous levels of PM2.5 and other air pollutants, leading to a litany of health complaints. 

CNN spoke with people like Andrea Macklin about symptoms and impacts from the biomass industry, finding issues ranging from a loss of sleep due to the 24/7 noise from the plant, to a majority of residents experiencing high blood pressure, with Macklin’s heart condition forcing the 44-year-old out of work and his wife and son’s asthma being exacerbated by the pollution from Enviva’s plant. “Since the plant started operating,” CNN reported, “his wife and son can’t spend more than five minutes outside without coughing.” 

Adding insult to literal injury? It’s not even actually reducing the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. The only place where levels are dropping are in the record-keeping of the European companies, because the biomass’s carbon emissions are recorded based on where the trees were cut, not where the biomass was actually burned. That classification was made to avoid double-counting when doing scientific calculations and was not intended to be the basis for public policy where all emissions end up in our one shared atmosphere no matter where they’re burned. The climate doesn’t care if the wood pellets processed in Northampton County, North Carolina are burned in Northampton, England. The carbon pollution is going back into the same atmosphere. 

While 🦕😈 🐘 deniers sometimes rail against U.S. climate action by pointing out that it will just push industry out to countries with looser environmental standards, increasing the total amount of pollution on the planet, in this case, the U.S. is that polluter-permitting country whose own citizens are suffering for the illusory benefit of foreign carbon accounting balance sheets.

As usual, the specific people left to suffer with the downsides of industry are those who already face a disproportionate burden . CNN analyzed records on pollution and demographics, because not only is Northampton, home to the Macklins and Enviva’s plant (along with three additional major air pollution sources), is predominately Black, but eight of Enviva’s nine plants are sited “in communities that have higher percentage of Black residents than their states as a whole.” All nine “are in census tracts that have lower median household incomes than their states.” 

Enviva says it takes environmental justice concerns “very seriously” and that they “work closely” with locals “to ensure our operations bring both positive economic and environmental impact,” before writing off the complaints as “generic” and coming from “the same activists we’ve heard from before.”

Which is not to say that trees aren’t part of the answer. But it’s not just trees, it’s forests. The entire 🌲🌳 forest ecosystem needs to be functional for carbon to be stored long term. As Dogwood Alliance co-founder Danna Smith explained to CNN,”the forestry industry and the wood pellet industry says that trees are renewable, but we aren’t renewing thousand-year-old ecosystems. They’re renewing forests for commercial 💵 production. So you’ll see trees on the landscape that are maybe, you know, 30 years old. That’s not an ecosystem — that’s a fiber farm.”

Still, some conservatives will insist subsidizing the timber industry and further polluting historically excluded communities is an acceptable price to pay to make it look like the GOP is acting on climate. They'll also claim those polluting industries will bring wealth and prosperity to those who live nearby.

As Smith points out, however, “if the wood products industry and biomass were a way of growing strong rural economies in the southeastern region, these rural communities should be some of the wealthiest on the planet. We are in the world’s largest wood producing region. But you don’t see any evidence in these rural communities of thriving rural economies. The opposite is actually true.

Subsidizing the timber industry in the name of climate action doesn’t help the climate and offers little-to-no real economic benefits to the local communities it floods with air pollution. Anyone buying into the GOP’s trillion trees greenwashing wood do well to reconsider.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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July 21, 2021 - Summaries written by Angely Mercado

In Today's Eco Update:

The red tide kills Tampa fish.
The deadly red tide has returned to Florida's Tampa Bay killing up to 600 tons worth of fish since this past June. In response, more than 100 protestors marched along the St. Petersburg waterfront this past weekend calling for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to declare a state of emergency so that Florida can allocate the funds to address the mass death of marine life. However, DeSantis responded by saying that there is enough funding available from the state's Department of Environmental Protection without the declaration.

The reoccurring red tide is caused by an overabundance of the algae Karenia brevis naturally occurs in the Gulf of Mexico, but is made worse by nutrient pollution. The previous major outbreak was in 2018 and this year's bloom may be even worst.

The true cost of food in the U.S.
There is a hidden cost to food in the United States, according to a new report that evaluated factors like healthcare costs, biodiversity loss, and the direct environmental impacts of farming in the country. The report was released by the Rockefeller Foundation explains in its report, True Cost of Food: Measuring What Matters to Transform the U.S. Food System, and analyzes how our current food system is really costing us in the long run.

This was evaluated through 14 metrics including air pollution, food insecurity, antimicrobial resistance driven by the widespread use of antibiotics in farming, and greenhouse gas emissions. Those "externalized costs" amount to at least $2.1 trillion annually and will be paid for by future generations.

Sustainable sector means sustainable jobs.

Jobs in the renewable energy and battery-related sectors have been much more resilient throughout the pandemic compared to the overall energy sector, according to the DOE's annual report. One in 10 U.S. energy workers lost their jobs in 2020 — oil and gas sectors lost the most jobs despite the billions in bailouts and substantial payouts to already wealthy executives. However, the wind energy employment grew by nearly 2% while jobs in the electric and hybrid-electric vehicle sectors grew by 8% and 6%.

And a look at why land runoff is dangerous for water ecosystems.
With #PlasticFreeJuly upon us, there has been a necessary, global focus on curbing plastic pollution and other trash that comes from land and often ends up in the sea. Now, in partnership with Plastic Oceans International, EcoWatch is highlighting the dangers of another land-based source of ecological harm: runoff.

According to the United States Geological Survey, runoff naturally occurs after rain falls onto a landscape. The water doesn't just sit on top of the ground; some seeps into soils to refresh groundwater, but most flows across ecosystems as surface runoff. In this way, runoff is an important part of the natural water cycle.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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