Greta’s full address is included along with a report on the disappointing response from world leaders. Trump spends only minutes at the Summit, leaving for a meeting with religious right, later patronizingly tweeting about Greta.
First, next week’s meeting: Tuesday, October 1, 6:30-8:30pm at 1420 Cerrillos the Center for Progress and Justice: A Panel Discussion on Democratizing Our Energy. Come learn about the transformative benefits of Local Choice Energy and Community Solar and how they are essential to a just transition in New Mexico. Let’s get ready to advocate for two bills that failed to pass in the 2019 legislative session that will be re-introduced in 2020 and/or 2021: Community Solar and Local Choice Energy.
Please RSVP by email to retakeresponse@gmail.com, or on Facebook — click “Going” at this link.
Confirmed panel members include:
- Mariel Nanasi, Executive Director of New Energy Economy;
- Rep. Abbas Akhil, D-Dist 20, and a retired renewable energy scientist;
- Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, D-District 13, sponsor of the Community Solar Act;
- Les Rubin, Finance Director, Pueblo of Picuris, where a 1 Megawatt solar array project was completed in 2018;
- To be confirmed: Mario Atencio, Legislative District Assistant, Navajo Nation, and Adjunct Professor, UNM Native American Studies.
Panelists will share their experiences and knowledge about Local Choice Energy and Community Solar, followed by a Q & A session with the audience. This is an opportunity to become better informed about a clean energy transition in New Mexico and to turn your knowledge into effective advocacy at the local and state level.
We hope to live-stream this event to Facebook and to have the video available to watch at any time after. We have a new piece of audio equipment scheduled to arrive this week that should noticeably improve the video/ streaming sound quality. To help us accommodate all who want to attend in person, PLEASE RSVP by clicking “Going” on this Facebook event page, or by emailing retakeresponse@gmail.com by Mon., Sept. 30. Thank you!
Climate Summit: Modest Proposals, Bigger Disappointments
I’m not sure many expected an abrupt advance in climate crisis commitments and the Summit only offered a few worth mentioning. From the BBC:
Major ports, banks and shipping lines are committing to “a moon shot” of net zero carbon shipping by 2030. Finland aims to become the first industrialised nation to absorb more carbon than it emits. Pakistan, which has planted a billion trees in the last five years, pledged to add 10 billion in the next five. And Greece said it would ban single-use plastics by 2021 and phase out its use of the dirtiest coal by 2028.
Critics applauded the efforts but said commitments from major nations were nowhere near what was needed to stabilise the climate. ”
Those are certainly promising commitments, but there was much more disappointment than commitment. For example, Germany’s plan to step up efforts to reduce use of coal were described as being entirely inadequate to meet even their Paris Accord goals, let alone represent an increase in commitment.
Both Macron and Merkel described Thunberg’s anger as being “misplaced” in focusing on France and Germany, claiming that that anger should be directed at those who are impeding progress (i.e. the US, China, Brazil and Australia) and not at those working toward a solution. But Greta was not alone in leveling criticism at world leaders.
Harjeet Singh, from the charity ActionAid, said: “This summit was supposed to be a turning point. But we have seen an exceptional lack of commitment from the biggest and richest polluting countries that continue to take trivial measures toward solving a life-or-death crisis.”
Kate Hampton, from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, asked: “If we can’t massively accelerate the many solutions available to us now… then what are we doing, really?”
Trump sauntered in mid-session while Greta was seated on the stage, the photo at left captures the moment she saw Trump enter. No wonder he left minutes later. After he left, Trump tweeted in an insultingly patronizing manner about Greta: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!”
Greta addressed the Summit and blasted international leaders in no uncertain terms, telling them that if they didn’t change their behaviors her generation would never forgive them. And that was the gentle part of her scolding. See below for her entire 5-minute address. Talk about speaking truth to power!
In solidarity,
Paul and Roxanne
Categories: Uncategorized
Once again Umair Haque frames it https://eand.co/the-schoolgirl-the-fascist-and-the-fight-for-the-future-a3ec098c2164
Locally a paltry turn out, and lackluster effect. New Mexico is in a particularity precarious situation when it comes to global climate change and global warming. I do not see anyone asking why this is not getting more traction. As long as they can subdivide over grazed, played out ranch land and put Mc Mansions on it, all is fine.
Our “local’ news chose to republish this bit of trite commentary. https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/greta-a-young-activist-s-moment-praised-and-criticized/article_71917f9a-4890-555f-9295-e2065e9a4256.html
https://joemonahansnewmexico.blogspot.com/index. Serna says,
“I join with the national AFL-CIO in opposing the Green New Deal. . . It would have a devastating effect on New Mexico’s economy and the state budget. It has the potential of ruining our cattle and dairy industry and bankrupting many small businesses. Even more compelling is the fact that it would eliminate the $934 million of gas and oil revenue that pays for our education system. . . As written, the Green New Deal is a disaster for New Mexico.”
Note that the dairy and cattle industries are highly subsidized with federal tax money. In Southern NM they are selling “USDA backed drought insurance” to promote the sale of overgrazed lots with no water to gullible out of staters.
No one has been looking at how he has been perpetuating the broken court system, https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/protests-planned-in-santa-fe-murder-case-with-missing-evidence/article_b896c125-ac9e-5a6c-a73a-6b56d4af5b3d.html There is nothing new or unusual about the “lost evidence” it is encouraged by the DAs office, and our judges, as they protect police misbehavior. Meanwhile in municipal court, https://www.sfreporter.com/news/coverstories/2019/09/18/courting-trouble/
“Santa Fe can’t evaluate the local court on that metric, however. That’s because it does not track defendants’ race or ethnicity and has no plans to do so, Vigil tells SFR. A national expert on city courts and criminal justice calls that approach “naive at best,” particularly in a place like Santa Fe, with its large non-white population.”
They have been gaslighting us all for decades. It is easy to allow lies, propaganda, and misinformation, when the facts and data are not tabulated. This is all by design, the courts are too corrupt for any meaningful interpretation of justice. It looks like nobody around here is “Woke” enough to recognize what is happening in their own back yard. Years ago the Santa Fe Police Department decided that they would not track gun related crimes, or repeated calls to police. This was done to protect “Gun Rights” and protect the big box stores, and sleazy landlords.
There is a reason that our judiciary is underfunded, it protects white collar criminals, while monetizing the despair and inequality in communities. Zero of our candidates even acknowledges this, or has the integrity to call it out.
Frankly, the turnout was not at all paltry, if what you are referring to is the Santa Fe strike. Were you there? Mary, virtually every one of your comments begins with “no one is doing anything about this” or some other slam at a slumbering movement. Yet I have never seen you at a meeting and I have never seen a comment from you describing anything you save criticizing the world for not doing more. Many of the links you provide are quite useful, but I have to ask: What exactly are you doing by way of activism? And, since your view is that no one is going anything, or no one is doing the right thing, what you suggest is the right thing?
While the global thing is so far away and does not directly impact policy here in New Mexico, it does not take much to figure out why there is little traction. https://www.abqjournal.com/1370295/nm-oil-and-gas-association-launches-1m-brighter-future-fund.html Egolf is quoted here, Brian Egolf, speaker of the state House of Representatives, said the program signified the “turning of a new page for New Mexico.” “It’s great to see industry investing in our kids’ future, investing in STEM, investing to make sure communities have what they need, and lifting up kids and their families all over New Mexico,” he said.
It is not even 1 million all at once, it is 200K over the course of five years. Of course we can forget the tax breaks, and subsidies, which took food out of the mouths of children, and the targeted under-funding of education, CYFD, and other programs in past years. Oil and Gas was instrumental in alternative facts, whitewashing history, and paying off politicians. Our academic institutions have been undermined by oil and gas money too. In order to get scholarships and internships, students have to grovel for oil and gas money in the STEM program.
A paltry million dollars and plenty of free goodwill, and advertising, NM Oil and Gas will get a lot of mileage out of that money. It is nice that they gave a few dollars out of their windfall, to education, but Egolf does not need to be advertising for them. He must be confused about how the oil and gas industry has undermined what was left of our democracy. Heck, if Dumpf starts a war in the Middle East, they can give us 2 million next year. That money won’t make much of dent on generational poverty, and the damage done by 30 years of Neo-liberal economic theories here in NM.
About “Where was I, I have already paid by dues. I am trying to figure out how much money our state and municipalities, paid, and subsidized the Dollar Stores, here in NM. It is almost genocidal, how they push processed food on low income, and rural people here. Somehow this topic has not come up, in any discussion of “Wellness.” The occasion high end “Farmer’s Markets” are not filling the void, but they give the appearance of “choice.” That way our state “wellness” campaigns can shame sick poor people. It was appalling how they allowed Presbyterian to use the “Farmers Market” tm for marketing purposes. I guess it makes sense to highly promote a “Farmer’s Market” at the Rail-yard, attended only by well heeled Anglo retirees, while people in this communities continue to die.
No one in New Mexico, https://www.abqjournal.com/1370685/group-sues-us-for-details-about-impact-of-grazing-program.html The dust storms and traffic fatalities were not enough of a wake up call.
I have been thinking about this, and wondering whose idea it was to sequester the protest to a parking lot. I apologize for not being there, but frankly any time I show up for these things I am seriously disappointed, since almost everything in Santa Fe is about marketing. For years the public has been told they could market their way out of environmental collapse, and here we are. Inconveniencing any of the businesses that are responsible for the Climate Apocalypse, would be improper, and frowned on, here. I doubt that the politicians who did show up even get it, they are all OK with corporate interference, and want to keep their heads down, and not expose the rot at the core of our so called community.
I was off in the Rio Grande Bosque, looking at cattle depredation, and imaging what the river could look like if anyone paid attention. The recent rains flooded the Bosque, and possibly caused some of the cottonwoods to germinate. I say possibly because it appears that the cattle ate all of the seedlings. Some of the fish spawning locations are now gone too, bulldozed away during the long drought. No one even noticed.
No one seems to have paid attention to the loss of our basic civil rights, locally. We have candidates that are lawyers, yet they never paid attention to what was actually happening in our local courts. They monetized the poverty despair and hopelessness. Clearly any actual protest could lead to any number of violations of our civil rights, injury, personal attacks, incarceration and worse, and people are aware on and unconscious level. Our courts, media, and apathetic citizens here have endorsed police brutality and violence, against protestors, it is so ingrained it is not even questioned. None of the clever people in this community paid attention, and it has all been so normalized by local media, that it is now accepted. We have a 2 sides version where almost half of the population endorses fascism, and the rest are too apathetic or distracted to care.
Local TV News sure put a spin on the forest closures, targeting the anger to the environmental groups instead of the administrations, corporate insiders at the forest service, who are trying to do away with any protections for our forests. Unfortunately people who turn in for their local weather reports are inundated with half truths, propaganda and outright lies.