Three articles offering thoughts on the challenge of understanding where we stand in the climate crisis timeline, plus potential international strategies that could actually work. Plus a poem & a climate crisis quiz that will surprise you.
Lots for you to read today. First a few events coming and then the very challenging climate quiz, three articles and a poem.
URGENT: The AV Set Up at 1420 Cerrillos, the Center for Progress & Justice, is simply not for anyone not a sound engineer or who is not very familiar with a whole lot of dials. Is there anyone out there with some chops when it comes to AV? If so, we’d love to get your help so we can ensure our smooth sailing for Tuesday’s important meeting and for future meetings. Write to us at RetakeResponse@gmail.com. We’d be so grateful and we’d take careful notes and share them with other groups as we are not alone in being mystified by this system.
Retake Our Democracy on KSFR 101.1 FM, Saturdays, 8:30 am – 9 am. This Saturday I interview Nick Estes, co-founder of Red Nation and we went for a full hour. So listen live on Saturday and then be sure to check out the podcast on Monday when it is posted on KSFR.org.
On Tuesday, Sept. 3 from 6:30-8:30pm at the Center for Progress & Justice, 1420 Cerrillos, Santa Fe, a presentation, panel discussion and audience dialogue: Retaking the NM State Senate. We were at the Center for Progress & Justice yesterday and tested the system. As long as no one messes around with the incredibly complex AV system that has no instructions, all should work for streaming. Finger crossed. Even if the live-stream crashes, we should be able to record and post the meeting video the next day. Stay tuned. We are now posting our meetings on Facebook, so you can click here to read more about the meeting and to RSVP.
Correction. We reported on the Jemez Electric Co-op election issues going to the Supreme Court on Sept. 3. That was bad information, it is First District Court in Santa Fe. More info and link to a Retake post on the Jemez Electric case. It is pretty nuts what is going on up there. Straight out of Tammany Hall or Richard Daley.
Click here to go to our Actions and Events page for more information on these and other events and actions including CD3 Congressional candidate forums, a climate disruption film festival and a great music, art and politics event featuring a pre-release film screening of the new Prince documentary, Mr. Nelson: On the North Side, and will cap with a performance by Belling the Cat of Santa Fe, who recorded the film’s soundtrack, featuring prominent musicians Brian Hardgroove, Jono Manson, John Kurzweg, and Stephen Peace. For more information and to get tickets, click here.
Click here to take a very surprising climate crisis quiz. Neither Roxanne nor I did well at all on this. Check it out. It will only take about 3-4 minutes. If you want, use the comment function to tell us what you thought of the quiz and how you did.
Preventing Extinction While Maintaining One’s Mental Health
Of late Roxanne and I have been reading Dahr Jamail and other publications from the Extinction Rebellion. Trying to report on issues like this are challenging as you almost need to be a climate scientist to fully grasp where we are in relation to climate crisis. Certainly most all scientific projections appear to have under-estimated both the scope of what is coming and the speed with which it is approaching.
Dahr Jamail and the Extinction Rebellion claim that climate catastrophe is now inevitable and some form of social collapse will be part of that scenario. Others have indicated that we have ten years to turn our collective ship around. That is not much time, but it leaves the door open to mitigate the worst of what is possible.
It is very tough going trying to understand where we stand and struggling with it can create some very emotionally challenging moments. Likely you have had some of those moments. Most recently I was suddenly floored when I thought of visiting our son and daughter-in-law in November to see our first grandchild, due in October. For him (they know the sex), the difference between inevitable social disintegration and mitigated climate catastrophe is vast. The article below, Some Thoughts on the Extinction Rebellion and the Future of the Climate Movement, describes and challenges the projections of the Extinction Rebellion while also commending the movement for possibly jump starting action. It is a very thoughtful article.
Click here to read the full article
Amazon Fire & Bolsonaro’s Refusal to Show Leadership Points to a Possible Longer Term Strategy for Climate Crisis Action
Recently I wrote how it was imperative that virtually the entire world must pivot quickly to address climate change. As noted in the article above, despite having the Paris Climate Accord in place and signed by the vast majority of nations, almost nothing has changed since. The forces that drive our international economy are mindlessly greedy and impervious to science, common sense or any thoughts of their heirs.
This Truthout article uses the stalemate in addressing the Amazon fires as a starting point, indicating that the UN General Council needs to declare the fires an international disaster and create an international force to fight the fires, with or without the approval of Bolsonaro. They also call for an international boycott of Brazil until the intentional fire setting is stopped and the fires are being fought appropriately.
This suggests a longer-term strategy for addressing climate crisis and moving beyond well-intentioned, but largely unenforced commitments. Imagine if the next climate summit– to be held in Chile in December– were to result in an agreement that included an enforcement tool that using an international boycott of any nation who either fails to sign the accord or fails to meet measurable benchmarks.
Imagine if the Paris Accord had been written as an enforceable agreement instead of a voluntary one. If Trump had wanted to exit or ignore the accord, the US could have then been subject to an international boycott. If that boycott were severe enough it would deter non-compliance or refusal to sign.
To be clear, the world has never operated this way and I am guessing this is not even on the table in Chile. But we are entering uncharted waters here and at some point soon, there is no question in my mind that something like this will be necessary to save us from extinction. Your thoughts? This is an excellent article and well worth your time. Click here to read.
Pros and Cons of Carbon Pricing
Many in our Climate Action Team are fervent supporters of carbon pricing, as are many others outside our group. I suspect that there are many people who may not fully understand the concept and how it works. This piece from the Yale Climate Connections does an excellent job of breaking down how climate pricing works and the pros and the cons. Very clear.
Click here to read the full piece.
Finally an excerpt from a poem by Vicki Robbin from an article by Dahr Jamail and his partner Barbara Cecil. If you want to check out more from Dahr Jamail and Barbara Cecil, click here. But frankly, if you work through the articles above, you may want to pass on this one. Tough going.
Reflections While Doing Dishes
I will be useless in the end times because I’ll still be saving rubber bands in case someone someday needs one.
I’ll be useless because I’ll still be rinsing out plastic bags in the sea as the water rises.
With the last gallon of gas I’ll still be gliding to a stop in order to go just a little bit further.
Once the gas is gone I’ll be thinking of something useful to do with the car.
The habits grooved deep in me as rituals of giving a damn will keep on precisely because they are habits.
I will be one of those wispy haired disheveled old women with a toothless smile calling everyone dearie and honey
and seeing if I have something in my pocket for them.
It’s too late to change everything, my friends.
So let’s save rubber bands and plastic bags, let’s empty our pockets,
let’s fight for what’s right not because we will win (and we’ll want to) but because it’s just what we do.
What do I change now that the change has come? Perhaps only my expectation that we could change this in time.
I am not hopeless. I am only without the hopes I had.
I will fall silent soon as life grows resplendent with truth.
Categories: Uncategorized
Re the climate crisis – let’s talk about OVERPOPULATION. People are brainwashed into thinking they must spawn. This is a big part of the problem. Do a search. Here’s one result: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12344889
I couldn’t agree more. We have the means to slow the population but not the will to use it. Thanks religion!
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/energy-for-all-socialize-grid/
The climate quiz did offer some surprises all right, but ranking four or more choices necessarily means if you know the correct relationship of three of the four and get only one in the wrong order, you automatically get two wrong as the incorrect one shoves another out of its rightful slot. Still, knowing the relative impacts of various actions is necessary. All change is difficult to bring about, so we need to get our priorities on straight before we take on the opposition, be it external or internal.
The thing I’m most aware of about carbon taxes is they get voted down (progressive Washington state) and trigger massive resistance (France’s yellow vests), so I figured just don’t go there. Wonder how many rereadings of the article I’ll need to get more clarity than that.